Writing is fundamentally the transfer of information from your brain to my brain. If you have 1000 bits of semantic information you want to transfer, you can't give 300 bits of semantic information to an LLM and have it fill in the remaining 700, because it doesn't know what those 700 bits are. If it's able to guess those 700 bits correctly, then they aren't true semantic information, and you really only have 300 bits you want to transfer. You might as well transfer those bits to me directly, rather than having the LLM add on an extra superfluous 700 bits that I then have to filter out.
I will give you a use case where this is absolutely not the case.
I have a bunch of CLI utils I run for various clients and their peculiar setups. They now have man pages with descriptions and examples in them because the LLM went and read my code and did the needful.
I no longer have to re read my own code, rather I can just use the manual page.
Format and description came from semantics and context that (barely) existed elsewhere and I was not going to retain or transmit, but I have now.
But then the LLMs aren't adding new information, they're just reading your code and translating that information from e.g. python to english. Rather than sending someone an LLM-generated doc to someone, send the code and your own personal thoughts on the code. If your reader doesn't want to read and understand your code, they can ask an LLM to analyze it, within the context of their specific use case and your personal thoughts if any.
You're making a big assumption that the code is what is being executed, and not a compiled binary.
Where is the code: My repo? the clients? If it's in mine, the client does not have access and the CLI is a first stop to debugging. They arent in the context of written docs, more likely a production error from a log (thats now spitting out a message to check the CLI).
Less steps, less tools, more context in line and available in an interface your already using.
> they can ask an LLM to analyze it, within the context of their specific use case and your personal thoughts if any.
Or I can skim the man page it generated and make sure it looks good. The "work" (the tokens) dont have get spent over and over again.
hatthew · · focus · HN ↗
Writing is fundamentally the transfer of information from your brain to my brain. If you have 1000 bits of semantic information you want to transfer, you can't give 300 bits of semantic information to an LLM and have it fill in the remaining 700, because it doesn't know what those 700 bits are. If it's able to guess those 700 bits correctly, then they aren't true semantic information, and you really only have 300 bits you want to transfer. You might as well transfer those bits to me directly, rather than having the LLM add on an extra superfluous 700 bits that I then have to filter out.
zer00eyz · · focus · HN ↗
I have a bunch of CLI utils I run for various clients and their peculiar setups. They now have man pages with descriptions and examples in them because the LLM went and read my code and did the needful.
I no longer have to re read my own code, rather I can just use the manual page.
Format and description came from semantics and context that (barely) existed elsewhere and I was not going to retain or transmit, but I have now.
hatthew · · focus · HN ↗
zer00eyz · · focus · HN ↗
You're making a big assumption that the code is what is being executed, and not a compiled binary.
Where is the code: My repo? the clients? If it's in mine, the client does not have access and the CLI is a first stop to debugging. They arent in the context of written docs, more likely a production error from a log (thats now spitting out a message to check the CLI).
Less steps, less tools, more context in line and available in an interface your already using.
> they can ask an LLM to analyze it, within the context of their specific use case and your personal thoughts if any.
Or I can skim the man page it generated and make sure it looks good. The "work" (the tokens) dont have get spent over and over again.