> People who rarely produced original writing are suddenly producing
these posts are beginning to make me wince. ai is giving voice to a lot of folks we probably wouldn't even be hearing from otherwise - because not everyone does their thinking in articulate prose, and extracting their realizations as shareable language takes effort, or long, embarassing iterations with ai "workshopping" to get to something they can read back and go yes this is what I am trying to say.
now the sentiment is that whatever these people had to say they could have just come out and said it - and that would be more passionate and less disjointed - no, not necessarily, and the more it gets repeated the more it's sounding elite and pompous to me. for example this:
> I had someone write me a personal message about a sensitive topic that was clearly workshopped with AI in an effort to nuance the conversation and not offend me. But the message became impersonal, dispassionate, and disjointed. It had all of the parts, but it didn’t make sense as a whole. I wasn’t interested in reading it, or responding.
this reads as someone choosing to ignore a personal message about a sensitive topic - because of an assumption they made about their writing: that they workshopped it when they should not have - because whatever it was they were struggling to say they should have isntead trusted the author to be able to understand the precise meaning of their raw, inelegant thoughts no matter how embarrassed they might be to share them in that form. they're complaining about a message they probably weren't otherwise going to see.
How is ai giving them voice? All that generated slop does that you stop to want to read anything. And it is not their voice anyway. It is not their words, their ideas are mixed with ai generated points.
As for second paragraph, the writing "had no overall meaning". There is nothing to respond to if there is no overall meaning.
What we are seeing here is a Luddite reaction from artisans. A skill has been automated and those that have the skill are not happy about it.
For many writing is painful and the machines ease the pain. And like all machines it takes a while to use them skilfully. In particular remembering that like code it is write once and read many. What the reader needs should be at the forefront of a writers mind - both for code and prose.
Nobody gets on a motorbike and wins the TT in the first weekend.
Writing can be painful because putting pen to paper forces you to think through every word and sentence. You immediately realize that the first thought that came to mind, wasn't a 100% correct idea, and it'll be more accurate and better formulated this way or that way. Writing is a sort of extended thinking, in which you're being held accountable for every word (by yourself). Some people argue that slowing down the writing process even more, for example by going from keyboard to pen and paper, gives you more time to process your thoughts, and leads to better and more articulate writing.
When I read AI-enhanced writing, I always feel like I have to peer through the blinds to see the writer's true intention. This feels very dishonest and partly offensive, because it can sometimes take several paragraphs before I realize that I'm reading AI output, rather than someone's processed thoughts.
gfody · · focus · HN ↗
these posts are beginning to make me wince. ai is giving voice to a lot of folks we probably wouldn't even be hearing from otherwise - because not everyone does their thinking in articulate prose, and extracting their realizations as shareable language takes effort, or long, embarassing iterations with ai "workshopping" to get to something they can read back and go yes this is what I am trying to say.
now the sentiment is that whatever these people had to say they could have just come out and said it - and that would be more passionate and less disjointed - no, not necessarily, and the more it gets repeated the more it's sounding elite and pompous to me. for example this:
> I had someone write me a personal message about a sensitive topic that was clearly workshopped with AI in an effort to nuance the conversation and not offend me. But the message became impersonal, dispassionate, and disjointed. It had all of the parts, but it didn’t make sense as a whole. I wasn’t interested in reading it, or responding.
this reads as someone choosing to ignore a personal message about a sensitive topic - because of an assumption they made about their writing: that they workshopped it when they should not have - because whatever it was they were struggling to say they should have isntead trusted the author to be able to understand the precise meaning of their raw, inelegant thoughts no matter how embarrassed they might be to share them in that form. they're complaining about a message they probably weren't otherwise going to see.
watwut · · focus · HN ↗
As for second paragraph, the writing "had no overall meaning". There is nothing to respond to if there is no overall meaning.
neilwilson · · focus · HN ↗
What we are seeing here is a Luddite reaction from artisans. A skill has been automated and those that have the skill are not happy about it.
For many writing is painful and the machines ease the pain. And like all machines it takes a while to use them skilfully. In particular remembering that like code it is write once and read many. What the reader needs should be at the forefront of a writers mind - both for code and prose.
Nobody gets on a motorbike and wins the TT in the first weekend.
TonyStr · · focus · HN ↗
When I read AI-enhanced writing, I always feel like I have to peer through the blinds to see the writer's true intention. This feels very dishonest and partly offensive, because it can sometimes take several paragraphs before I realize that I'm reading AI output, rather than someone's processed thoughts.