If you couldn't bother to read it, why should I?
doesn't follow. You don't know that they didn't read it! Only that they didn't write it. If the point of things like this is to be careful, then be careful.
I like Oxide's version of this: <a href="https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0576#_llms_as_writers" rel="nofollow">https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0576#_llms_as_writers
The old social contract was that the writer had done more work than they were asking of the reader, but this is torn to shreds with LLM-generated text.
That is entirely invalid considering the existence of ghost writers and such.
No one reads a piece of text BECAUSE the writer had more work writing it than the writer will have reading it (this could end up not being true regardless of AI either way).
The “old social contract” is that readers trust the writers had something to say, and said it. The inner workings have always been irrelevant.
Trouble with genText is that it’s easy for your point to get lost in the narrative exactly because you didn’t write it—it’s like when you know something but can’t put it into words. Your own voice can get lost and so does the appeal to the readers. Nothing to do with effort, entirely to do with the content itself.
I don’t want to read your genAI text because I don’t trust that you managed to get your point across in prose, but I don’t mind reading an LLM’s output because I just wanted a piece of information.
The old social contract was between two humans. Effort was a consequence, not the target.
Fundamentally if I could have got the same outcome from an LLM as the “author” of an AI-generated piece, I value their effort at zero.
The more generative AI content there is in a piece, the less value it has per word.
Deep down our brains seem to know this, too.
LLM content is smooth, without novelty or surprises or shared amusement, and in text we have not summoned up ourselves, we are looking for that as a proxy for connection with the author.
I have used this analogy before but it’s like a rollercoaster without jerk or jounce; there are no thrills or interesting quirks for our brains.
So much so that when you see an AI-assisted piece of any length that has human-written sentences in it, they tend to stick out more, even before you have fully read the text, whereas the LLM words scan past so easily.
The thing that brings this home for me is that the final output of an LLM very rarely makes me chuckle at whimsy or weirdness, but the more disordered thinking traces more often do.
tptacek · · focus · HN ↗
If you couldn't bother to read it, why should I?
doesn't follow. You don't know that they didn't read it! Only that they didn't write it. If the point of things like this is to be careful, then be careful.
slongfield · · focus · HN ↗
The old social contract was that the writer had done more work than they were asking of the reader, but this is torn to shreds with LLM-generated text.
oejgirjdiejfiej · · focus · HN ↗
No one reads a piece of text BECAUSE the writer had more work writing it than the writer will have reading it (this could end up not being true regardless of AI either way).
The “old social contract” is that readers trust the writers had something to say, and said it. The inner workings have always been irrelevant.
Trouble with genText is that it’s easy for your point to get lost in the narrative exactly because you didn’t write it—it’s like when you know something but can’t put it into words. Your own voice can get lost and so does the appeal to the readers. Nothing to do with effort, entirely to do with the content itself.
I don’t want to read your genAI text because I don’t trust that you managed to get your point across in prose, but I don’t mind reading an LLM’s output because I just wanted a piece of information.
The old social contract was between two humans. Effort was a consequence, not the target.
dofm · · focus · HN ↗
The more generative AI content there is in a piece, the less value it has per word.
Deep down our brains seem to know this, too.
LLM content is smooth, without novelty or surprises or shared amusement, and in text we have not summoned up ourselves, we are looking for that as a proxy for connection with the author.
I have used this analogy before but it’s like a rollercoaster without jerk or jounce; there are no thrills or interesting quirks for our brains.
So much so that when you see an AI-assisted piece of any length that has human-written sentences in it, they tend to stick out more, even before you have fully read the text, whereas the LLM words scan past so easily.
The thing that brings this home for me is that the final output of an LLM very rarely makes me chuckle at whimsy or weirdness, but the more disordered thinking traces more often do.