4 ms·

I have the dread that in a relatively short amount of time the personal traits in peoples writing will over time decrease and may essentially end. All our writ

I have the dread that in a relatively short amount of time the personal traits in peoples writing will over time decrease and may essentially end. All our written interaction will have been polished and enhanced by one LLM or another into a uniform template.

parliament32 2y ago
I doubt it'll matter much. If the future actually turns out to be people using LLMs to write content, and other people using LLMs to read content, we'll probably give up on long-form writing entirely and just pass data around in some sort of LLM-to-LLM data format.
- notjoemama 2y ago
  Eliminating both the creator AND the customer? It’s an almost perfect business model.
esafak 2y ago
What is the point of using an LLM to pad out something that could be shorter? People would rather read less. The proper uses of an LLM, it seems to me, are to proofread and critique.
- lgas 2y ago
  There are lots of perverse incentives baked into the web today. Eg. payouts based on time spent on content.
DoingIsLearning 2y ago
> All our written interaction will have been polished and enhanced by one LLM or another into a uniform template. Isn't that just a natural continuation of a global homogenization of human culture and experience? If you visit anywhere in Europe, or Asia, or the Americas you now have virtually the same 'a la starbucks' coffee culture (even in countries with strong cafe cultures). Same lighting, same minimalist furniture, same music. Couples now take the same style of wedding/newborn photos across the globe. Music globally has become less, not more, diverse.[0] A loss of writer's voice or style would be just another step in this global 'blandenization' of human experience/aesthetics. [0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/science-proves-pop-music-has-actually-gotten-worse-8173368/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/science-proves-pop...
- computerthings 2y ago
  > From a philosophical viewpoint, the danger inherent in the new reality of mankind seems to be that this unity, based on the technical means of communication and violence, destroys all national traditions and buries the authentic origins of all human existence. This destructive process can even be considered a necessary prerequisite for ultimate understanding between men of all cultures, civilizations, races, and nations. Its result would be a shallowness that would transform man, as we have known him in five thousand years of recorded history, beyond recognition. It would be more than mere superficiality; it would be as though the whole dimension of depth, without which human thought, even on the mere level of technical invention, could not exist, would simply disappear. This leveling down would be much more radical than the leveling to the lowest common denominator; it would ultimately arrive at a denominator of which we have hardly any notion today. -- Hannah Arendt
- binary132 2y ago
  Just because the same capitalists are running the same ventures in countries outside of the Western nations does not mean their local cultures have become homogenized any more than Western cultures are actually defined by Starbucks and ubiquitous fast food.
vineyardmike 2y ago
My first thought to reading what you wrote was fast denial, but the more I thought about it, I agree. We’ve seen vocal accents decline with globalized media, we’ve seen slang become more global, same with the entire English language. For years my text messages have been de-personalized by picking the autocomplete word choice where it makes sense, so why wouldn’t better LLMs expand that to even more written text? That said, I suspect this won’t remain true in literary circles nor in certain professional contexts - where word choice is an art or signal, it will remain valuable. Politicians won’t sound like ChatGPT, for example. Think of some of the most famous modern politicians… they all have a unique way of speaking that makes it clear who’s talking.
- disqard 2y ago
  Perhaps ironic, but I feel compelled to point out that: "That said," ...is a bog-standard ChatGPT-esque way to begin one's "summarize and wrap up" paragraph :D
  - vineyardmike 2y ago
    Is it? Because the paragraph-in-question that starts with this doesn't actually summarize any points. Not only that, but the phrase doesn't actually have any rhetorical connection to summarization.
milesrout 2y ago
I think that has already largely happened. Writing has become more homogenous on the web. It is rare that I read anything with any real personal writing style anymore. There are bloggers with distinctive writing styles, but most bloggers write in a fairly generic "blogger style", a bit like the writing equivalent of the ~universal "youtube video essay voice". I would say the prevalent of automatic spelling and grammar checkers has has a bit of an influence. I find Outlook often "corrects" something I write to an alternative style that is not any more correct than what I wrote.

parliament32 2y ago

I doubt it'll matter much. If the future actually turns out to be people using LLMs to write content, and other people using LLMs to read content, we'll probably give up on long-form writing entirely and just pass data around in some sort of LLM-to-LLM data format.

notjoemama 2y ago
Eliminating both the creator AND the customer? It’s an almost perfect business model.

esafak 2y ago

What is the point of using an LLM to pad out something that could be shorter? People would rather read less. The proper uses of an LLM, it seems to me, are to proofread and critique.

lgas 2y ago
There are lots of perverse incentives baked into the web today. Eg. payouts based on time spent on content.

DoingIsLearning 2y ago

> All our written interaction will have been polished and enhanced by one LLM or another into a uniform template. Isn't that just a natural continuation of a global homogenization of human culture and experience? If you visit anywhere in Europe, or Asia, or the Americas you now have virtually the same 'a la starbucks' coffee culture (even in countries with strong cafe cultures). Same lighting, same minimalist furniture, same music. Couples now take the same style of wedding/newborn photos across the globe. Music globally has become less, not more, diverse.[0] A loss of writer's voice or style would be just another step in this global 'blandenization' of human experience/aesthetics. [0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/science-proves-pop-music-has-actually-gotten-worse-8173368/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/science-proves-pop...

computerthings 2y ago
> From a philosophical viewpoint, the danger inherent in the new reality of mankind seems to be that this unity, based on the technical means of communication and violence, destroys all national traditions and buries the authentic origins of all human existence. This destructive process can even be considered a necessary prerequisite for ultimate understanding between men of all cultures, civilizations, races, and nations. Its result would be a shallowness that would transform man, as we have known him in five thousand years of recorded history, beyond recognition. It would be more than mere superficiality; it would be as though the whole dimension of depth, without which human thought, even on the mere level of technical invention, could not exist, would simply disappear. This leveling down would be much more radical than the leveling to the lowest common denominator; it would ultimately arrive at a denominator of which we have hardly any notion today. -- Hannah Arendt
binary132 2y ago
Just because the same capitalists are running the same ventures in countries outside of the Western nations does not mean their local cultures have become homogenized any more than Western cultures are actually defined by Starbucks and ubiquitous fast food.

vineyardmike 2y ago

My first thought to reading what you wrote was fast denial, but the more I thought about it, I agree. We’ve seen vocal accents decline with globalized media, we’ve seen slang become more global, same with the entire English language. For years my text messages have been de-personalized by picking the autocomplete word choice where it makes sense, so why wouldn’t better LLMs expand that to even more written text? That said, I suspect this won’t remain true in literary circles nor in certain professional contexts - where word choice is an art or signal, it will remain valuable. Politicians won’t sound like ChatGPT, for example. Think of some of the most famous modern politicians… they all have a unique way of speaking that makes it clear who’s talking.

disqard 2y ago
Perhaps ironic, but I feel compelled to point out that: "That said," ...is a bog-standard ChatGPT-esque way to begin one's "summarize and wrap up" paragraph :D
- vineyardmike 2y ago
  Is it? Because the paragraph-in-question that starts with this doesn't actually summarize any points. Not only that, but the phrase doesn't actually have any rhetorical connection to summarization.

milesrout 2y ago

I think that has already largely happened. Writing has become more homogenous on the web. It is rare that I read anything with any real personal writing style anymore. There are bloggers with distinctive writing styles, but most bloggers write in a fairly generic "blogger style", a bit like the writing equivalent of the ~universal "youtube video essay voice". I would say the prevalent of automatic spelling and grammar checkers has has a bit of an influence. I find Outlook often "corrects" something I write to an alternative style that is not any more correct than what I wrote.