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.
> 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.
It doesn't actually follow, because maybe the LLM is smarter than the original writer (at least in the domain the writing is about) and hence really is able to complete the ideas in a way the writer can't. As an existing example, consider formulating a conjecture and having an LLM prove it. But I agree; if I wanted to read an LLM's output I'd simply ask it myself rather than read someone's supposedly-human writing.
>It doesn't actually follow, because maybe the LLM is smarter than the original writer (at least in the domain the writing is about) and hence really is able to complete the ideas in a way the writer can't.
Then what's the point of the original writer?
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.
stratos123 · · focus · HN ↗
It doesn't actually follow, because maybe the LLM is smarter than the original writer (at least in the domain the writing is about) and hence really is able to complete the ideas in a way the writer can't. As an existing example, consider formulating a conjecture and having an LLM prove it. But I agree; if I wanted to read an LLM's output I'd simply ask it myself rather than read someone's supposedly-human writing.
BobaFloutist · · focus · HN ↗
Then what's the point of the original writer?