3 ms·

Why is the author mad? The "polish" button does exactly what you would expect it to do if you understand "polish" as "make polite". If you want to keep your wor

by GuB-42 2y ago

Why is the author mad? The "polish" button does exactly what you would expect it to do if you understand "polish" as "make polite". If you want to keep your words true and "unpolished", maybe at the risk of sounding rude, then don't use that feature. It is actually one of the first things I used LLMs for, and I still am. Latest example, I received an email from an administration asking me to sign some document, but it contained some incorrect information. I used a LLM to write a nice letter telling them to fix it. I could have just replied "it is not A, it is B", but without some formalism, it sounds rude, and I didn't want to sound rude, I also didn't want to make efforts for that formalism. It may be one of the things LLMs do best, they are like supercharged model letters. Of course I don't do that in informal situations or when I want some emotional connection. By the way, no LLM touched this comment, I don't consider posting on HN a formal situation. EDIT: typoes, but maybe I should have let them in, to show that it wasn't the work of a LLM ;)

bityard 2y ago
> and I didn't want to sound rude I think it's interesting how this has changed. If you go back and look at politically correct corpo-speak from decades past, it was bland and impersonal but aimed to be direct, clear, and reasonably concise. These days, it's still impersonal but now couched in platitudes, apologies, and excessively polite language in an attempt to avoid possibly offending anyone in any conceivable fashion. I'm worried that we'll get to a point in regular work communications where responding to a question with a simple and succinct "yes" instead of, "Great idea, I think that is an absolutely perfect plan and you surely deserve a call-out at the next all-hands meeting for coming up with the idea to fix that problem in the team's code!!!" will get you put on an HR watchlist for being difficult to get along with.
- GuB-42 2y ago
  From my experience with LLMs, it matches your description of "corpo-speak". I think it is the right balance of politeness. The result is usually rather simple, and when it is not, that's because it wants me to add extra information, which is often a good idea, not because of too much politeness. It is not at all like you say in the end, way more boring and that's the point. But out of curiosity, I asked ChatGPT for some appropriate formula for a use case like yours and I got "Sounds good to me! I accept your suggestion—let's move forward with it." Of course, there is some formalism here, in day-to-day communication with people you know, I found it to become less formal over the years. "ok" is fine now when it wasn't before. I think because test-based instant messaging is now commonplace.

by GuB-42 2y ago

bityard 2y ago

> and I didn't want to sound rude I think it's interesting how this has changed. If you go back and look at politically correct corpo-speak from decades past, it was bland and impersonal but aimed to be direct, clear, and reasonably concise. These days, it's still impersonal but now couched in platitudes, apologies, and excessively polite language in an attempt to avoid possibly offending anyone in any conceivable fashion. I'm worried that we'll get to a point in regular work communications where responding to a question with a simple and succinct "yes" instead of, "Great idea, I think that is an absolutely perfect plan and you surely deserve a call-out at the next all-hands meeting for coming up with the idea to fix that problem in the team's code!!!" will get you put on an HR watchlist for being difficult to get along with.

GuB-42 2y ago
From my experience with LLMs, it matches your description of "corpo-speak". I think it is the right balance of politeness. The result is usually rather simple, and when it is not, that's because it wants me to add extra information, which is often a good idea, not because of too much politeness. It is not at all like you say in the end, way more boring and that's the point. But out of curiosity, I asked ChatGPT for some appropriate formula for a use case like yours and I got "Sounds good to me! I accept your suggestion—let's move forward with it." Of course, there is some formalism here, in day-to-day communication with people you know, I found it to become less formal over the years. "ok" is fine now when it wasn't before. I think because test-based instant messaging is now commonplace.