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.
>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.
A math teacher only has "this class is about math" to transfer, the rest is known. ;-)
Jokes aside, I think we're in a weird transition now where AI is used to generate text that looks good but is bad. In a few years people will know that and be more critical.
I think we went through a similar phase when DTP had it's breakthrough. Suddenly school papers were laser printed 300ppi times new roman and got more attention than better papers written by hand. But eventually that became the baseline.
I think Ai will make it so that well-written texts with clarity, good layout, correct illustrations, callouts etc become the norm, and will no longer impress anyone unless the information itself is actually good.
And if the information is good, it won't matter if it's AI generated or not.
Maybe things will change in the future, but I know where things stand right now. Would you rather learn about math by interacting with the teacher, by using the internet (including public LLMs), or by having the teacher tell an LLM "teach a math class" and then copy-paste its response to you? Option 1 is the best, but option 2 is at least better than option 3.
>Maybe things will change in the future, but I know where things stand right now
It's not an either-or though, LLM generated text already provides lots of value in many situations right now. It's also used for fluff, yes, but much of what humans write is fluff too, reporters often get paid by the word.
The point is that the value in a text has nothing to do with whether it was generated by an LLM or not. What matters is if it's useful or not.
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.
Kon5ole · · focus · HN ↗
A math teacher only has "this class is about math" to transfer, the rest is known. ;-)
Jokes aside, I think we're in a weird transition now where AI is used to generate text that looks good but is bad. In a few years people will know that and be more critical.
I think we went through a similar phase when DTP had it's breakthrough. Suddenly school papers were laser printed 300ppi times new roman and got more attention than better papers written by hand. But eventually that became the baseline.
I think Ai will make it so that well-written texts with clarity, good layout, correct illustrations, callouts etc become the norm, and will no longer impress anyone unless the information itself is actually good.
And if the information is good, it won't matter if it's AI generated or not.
hatthew · · focus · HN ↗
Kon5ole · · focus · HN ↗
It's not an either-or though, LLM generated text already provides lots of value in many situations right now. It's also used for fluff, yes, but much of what humans write is fluff too, reporters often get paid by the word.
The point is that the value in a text has nothing to do with whether it was generated by an LLM or not. What matters is if it's useful or not.