5 ms·
I actually think we’re overestimating how much of "losing our voice" is caused by LLMs. Even before LLMs, we were doing the same tweet-sized takes, the same med
by coffeecoders 11mo ago
I actually think we’re overestimating how much of "losing our voice" is caused by LLMs. Even before LLMs, we were doing the same tweet-sized takes, the same medium-style blog posts and the same corporate tone.
Ironically, LLMs might end up forcing us back toward more distinct voices because sameness has become the default background.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- riazrizvi 11mo agoContent recycling has become so cheap, effort-wise, it’s killed the business. Thank god.
- coffeecoders 11mo agoYes. That particular content-farm business model (rewrite 10 articles -> add SEO slop -> profit) is effectively dead now that the marginal cost is zero. I’m not mourning it.
- bmacho 11mo agoThat particular content-farm never interacted with me. Tangentially, we've reached to the point that we can't trust google/internet anymore.
- LunaSea 11mo agoIt doesn't it just makes it cheaper by not requiring human effort.
- acedTrex 11mo agoI mean, if you typed something by your own hand it is in your voice. The fact that everyone tried to EMULATE the same corporate tone does not at all remove peoples individual ways of communicating.
- coffeecoders 11mo agoI’m not sure I agree with this sentiment. You can type something "by hand" and still have almost no voice in it if the incentives push you to flatten it out. A lot of us spent years optimizing for clarity, SEO, professionalism etc. But that did shape how we wrote, maybe even more than our natural cadence. The result wasn’t voice, it was everyone converging on the safe and optimized template.
- ori_b 11mo agoIf you chose to trade your soul to 'incentives', and replace incisive thought with bland SEO and professionalism -- you chose this. Your voice has become the bland language of business.
- O_H_E 11mo agoSo in that case, would someone willing to publish LLM-speak under their name be similarly adopting that "voice". Does that entail that LLMs are not in fact erasing our societal voices, only making it easier to adopt bland-corporate en-mass?
- ori_b 11mo agoThat's a reasonable interpretation. People are choosing to mute their voices, and replace their identity with ChatGPT. It's not a passive loss of voice. Their voice didn't fall off and slip between the couch cushions.
- mewpmewp2 11mo agoYes, fully agreed. Most people producing content were always doing it to get quick clicks and engagement. People always had to filter things anyhow and you had to choose where you get your content from. People were posting Medium posts rewriting someone else's content, wrongly, etc.
- gregates 11mo agoAlso ironic is how the post about having a unique voice is written in one-sentence-paragraph LinkedIn clickbait style.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- ryandv 11mo agoYou're absolutely right! Tell me more about how ironic is how the post about having a unique voice is written in one-sentence-paragraph LinkedIn clickbait style.
- gordonhart 11mo agoMy theory is that LLMs are accelerating [online] radicalization by commoditizing bland, HR-approved opinions. If you want to sound like a human on the internet, for better or for worse the easiest way is to say something that would make Anthropic’s safety team have a heart attack.
- dingnuts 11mo ago[dead]
- 6thbit 11mo agoI mean there's still Grok... surely that gives may safety teams heartburn. But I find this take interesting. The brewing of a new kind of counter culture that forces humans to express themselves creatively. Hopefully it doesn't get too radical.
- ryandv 11mo ago> commoditizing bland, HR-approved opinions. If you want to sound like a human on the internet, for better or for worse the easiest way is to say something that would make Anthropic’s safety team have a heart attack. I agree. LLMs are like blackface for dumbfucks: LLMs let the profoundly retarded put on the makeup and airs of the literati so they can parade around self-identifying as if they have a clue. If you don't like the barbs in this kind of writing prepare for more anodyne corporate slop. Every downvote signals to the algorithm that you prefer mediocrity.
- zero_shift 11mo agoYou are right. An observation, even before the rise of LLMs, was that computers were becoming more human-like and humans were acting more like machines The sculpting force of algorithms is bite sized zingers, hot takes, ragebait, and playing to the analytics
- ryandv 11mo agoBingo. Your message is only what the medium promotes.
- xnx 11mo agoThe greatest thing "AI slop" achieved was highlighting how much "human slop" content there was.
- agi_piggy 11mo ago[dead]
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]