sometimes reading LLM text reminds me of being a TA and having to grade student essays from people that didn't really understand. the courses i had to grade in

sometimes reading LLM text reminds me of being a TA and having to grade student essays from people that didn't really understand. the courses i had to grade in were often undergrad students first exposure to having to read scientific papers. when it came time to write an essay of their own, they always felt a need to mimic the writing style of those papers and it resulted in lots of superficial changes to their writing that made it clear that they read the papers but did not understand the papers. they'd sprinkle in words like "putative" and "substrate" in places that felt correct but made no sense. i wish that they would've had the confidence to just write what they wanted to say instead of putting on airs and making some convoluted and sometimes nonsensical prose. LLMs do the same thing.