6 ms·

I heard the other day that LLMs won't replace writers, just mediocre writing. On the one hand, I can see the point- you'll never get chatgpt to come up with so

by zdragnar 10mo ago

I heard the other day that LLMs won't replace writers, just mediocre writing. On the one hand, I can see the point- you'll never get chatgpt to come up with something on par with the venerable Crafting Interpreters. On the other hand, that means that all the hard-won lessons from writing poorly and improving with practice will be eliminated for most. When a computer can do something better than you right now, why bother trying to get better on your own? You never know if you'll end up surpassing it or not. Much easier to just put out mediocre crap and move on. Which, I think, means that we will see fewer and fewer masters of crafts as more people are content with drudgery. After all, it is cheaper and generally healthier and tastier to cook at home, yet for many people fast food or ordering out is a daily thing.

deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
ok_dad 10mo ago
Your whole point is disproven by woodworking as a craft, and many other crafts for that matter. There are still craftspeople doing good work with wood even though IKEA and such have captured the furniture industry. There will still be fine programmers developing software by hand after AI is good enough for most.
- bryanrasmussen 10mo ago
  high quality carpentry has a market of people who buy one off projects for lots of money. There is not really a similar market in software. I'm not saying there won't be fine programmers etc. but with woodworking I can see how a market exists that will support you developing your skills and I don't see it with software and thus the path seems much less clear to me.
  - CuriouslyC 10mo ago
    Bro, there is a HUGE market for one off software projects for lots of money.
    - operatingthetan 10mo ago
      I've been involved in building a multitude of saas apps and very few of them had any unique functionality. I'm not sure many of those companies cared about the uniqueness of their code.
      - suddenlybananas 10mo ago
        Obviously, they care about the uniqueness of the code if they are one-offs.
        operatingthetan 10mo ago
        My thought is that many of them thought their products were one-offs but were actually not in practice.
      - ryoshu 10mo ago
        SAP or Salesforce can do anything. Or you can write custom code for a fraction of the price for small/medium sized businesses.
    - bryanrasmussen 10mo ago
      yeah sorry I've seen one off carpentry projects for lots of money and I've worked on software projects for individual companies, and it's not really comparable (especially going back to the earlier post that started this, which I thought was not discussing say the newest spotify competitor or something similar) however I suppose at the point where I need to explain that and all the ways in which the two things are dissimilar it becomes a book in itself.
      - phil21 10mo ago
        We are all talking about exceptions to the exception at this point. It's typically uninteresting to discuss... But at the risk of being uninteresting, I know of incredibly niche software projects that were done for a single rich benefactor as one-offs simply for their personal use-case and no one else. Years in the making and quite well paid. In one case effectively lifetime employment for the sole developer. They are obviously incredibly rare, but they do exist. However, they are totally irrelevant to discuss in this context since it's a rounding error of 1% of 1% of current developers who would get such roles either via luck or skill.
- brailsafe 10mo ago
  > There will still be fine programmers developing software by hand after AI is good enough for most. This fallacy seems to be brought up very frequently, that there are still blacksmiths; people who ride horses; people who use typewriters; even people who use fountain pens, but they don't really exist in any practical or economical sense outside of 10 years ago Portland, OR. No technological advancement that I'm aware of completely eliminates one's ability to pursue a discipline as a hobbyist or as a niche for rich people. It's rarely impossible, but I don't think that's ever anyone's point. Sometimes they even make a comeback, like vinyl records. The scope of the topic seems to be what the usual one is, which is the chain of incentives that enable the pursuit of something as a persuasive exchange of value, particularly that of a market that needs a certain amount of volume and doesn't have shady protectionism working for it like standard textbooks. With writing, like with other liberal arts, it's far from a new target of parental scrutiny, and it's my impression that those disciplines have long been the pursuit of people who can largely get away with not really needing a viable source of income, particularly during the apprentice and journeyman stages. Programming has been largely been exempt from that, but if I were in the midst of a traditional comp sci program, facing the existential dreads that are U.S and Canadian economies (at least), along with the effective collapse of a path to financial stability, I'd be stupid not to be considering a major pivot; to what, I don't know.
  - uxcolumbo 10mo ago
    Things that won't be automated anytime soon, like plumbers or electricians. Or double down on applied ML?
    - mhb 10mo ago
      Nurses.
      - tharkun__ 10mo ago
        A lot of nurses leave the profession because of the abysmal financial and working conditions.
- ponector 10mo ago
  Yet usually woodworking is not a viable business. As a craft - sure. As a day job to provide for your family - not really. Guys who created a custom tables for me five years ago are out of business. Pretty much the same story with any craft.
  - sojournerc 10mo ago
    Right, nobody needs cabinets or doors because... AI. /s I'm a professional woodworker. One-off tables in a garage might not be a great business, but millwork, built-ins, and cabinetry in homes is a great business. You're likely not exposed to cabinet or architectural woodwork shops that build high-end homes, or that just do renovation for that matter.
    - wat10000 10mo ago
      That’s the point. It used to be something almost everyone bought. Now it’s relegated to high-end luxury. The craft still exists, and you can still do well, but it’s much diminished. It’s not that nobody needs cabinets or doors. It’s that automation, transportation, and economies of scale have made it much cheaper to produce those things with machines in a factory.
    - bsder 10mo ago
      > One-off tables in a garage might not be a great business, but millwork, built-ins, and cabinetry in homes is a great business. I'd like to see numbers backing that up. My personal impression is that you have a small number of custom woodworkers hustling after an ever smaller number of rich clients. That seems like exactly the same problem.
    - ivell 10mo ago
      A better comparison to Ikea vs Handcraft would be shrinkwrap software vs custom software for companies. With AI, the custom software industry is getting disrupted (if the current trajectory of improvements continue). In case of woodcraft, there is some tangible result that can be appreciated and displayed as art. In case of custom software, there is no such displayability.
- borroka 10mo ago
  This comparison is hardly apt in the way it is formulated, but it is fitting when considering tailors and seamstresses. A few decades ago, numerous tailors made custom-made clothes and skilled seamstresses repaired them. Today, since clothes are made by machines and the cost of production has fallen significantly, making bespoke clothes has become a niche job, almost extinct, and instead of repairing clothes, people prefer to buy new ones. These jobs have not disappeared, but they have become much less common and attractive.
CuriouslyC 10mo ago
What is the inherent value of being able to write well? Is it not possible that people consider their craft to exist at a higher level than the written word? For example, writing facile prose is a very different from being a good storyteller. How many brilliant stories has the world missed out on because the people who imagined them didn't have the confidence with prose to share them.
- andsoitis 10mo ago
  Your last sentence is one answer to the question you ask in the first sentence.
  - LoganDark 10mo ago
    That's a common usage of a rhetorical question. You ask it and then you answer it.
    - andsoitis 10mo ago
      > common usage of a rhetorical question. You ask it and then you answer it. A rhetorical question is a question asked for effect rather than to get an answer. If you have to explicitly answer the question it is not rhetorical.
pinewurst 10mo ago
I have to disagree. My brother-in-law has started to use ChatGPT to punch up his personal letters and they’ve become excerpts from lesser 70s sitcoms. From actually personal and relevant to disturbingly soulless.
- mikestorrent 10mo ago
  Right? If I could get the same output by just talking to AI myself, what's the point of the human connection? Be something, be someone. Be wrong or a little rude from time to time, it's still more genuine.
  - pinewurst 10mo ago
    His last letter was an update on a serious health issue. I care. It's not supposed to be a yuck fest, especially inorganic AI sludge.
    - alpinisme 10mo ago
      I’m honestly stunned that people use AI for personal communication. It seems so alien to me.
      - shermantanktop 10mo ago
        You don’t think your comment would be improved by including an emoji of an alien? And maybe a telephone? The “tells” for AI are - as of this writing - very obvious. I assume they will disappear over time.
        foxglacier 10mo ago
        The obvious tells are obvious. The less obvious ones fool you so you don't learn them. There's no feedback. You sound like a schoolteacher saying "My students don't cheat on exams. I'd know if they did!" For starters, you can just tell the AI to write in the style of a HN commenter, or whatever.
lokar 10mo ago
LLLMs replace bad writing with mediocre writing
- zdragnar 10mo ago
  One thing getting better at writing does is make you better at organizing your thoughts. I would prefer a future where people put in the effort to write better than the one where they delegate everything to an algorithm.
  - lokar 10mo ago
    100% Working with Jr engineers I found a really strong correlation (even with native speakers of American English) between clear writing (longer email, design docs, etc) and good code. Writing is thinking
baubino 10mo ago
LLMs will make mediocre and bad writers think they are good writers. It will also make consumers of said mediocre and bad writing think they are consuming worthwhile stuff. Not only will writing get worse but expectations for it will sink as well. (I’ve written this in the future tense but this is all in fact happening already. Amid the slop, decent writing stands out more.)

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

ok_dad 10mo ago

Your whole point is disproven by woodworking as a craft, and many other crafts for that matter. There are still craftspeople doing good work with wood even though IKEA and such have captured the furniture industry. There will still be fine programmers developing software by hand after AI is good enough for most.

bryanrasmussen 10mo ago
high quality carpentry has a market of people who buy one off projects for lots of money. There is not really a similar market in software. I'm not saying there won't be fine programmers etc. but with woodworking I can see how a market exists that will support you developing your skills and I don't see it with software and thus the path seems much less clear to me.
- CuriouslyC 10mo ago
  Bro, there is a HUGE market for one off software projects for lots of money.
  - operatingthetan 10mo ago
    I've been involved in building a multitude of saas apps and very few of them had any unique functionality. I'm not sure many of those companies cared about the uniqueness of their code.
    - suddenlybananas 10mo ago
      Obviously, they care about the uniqueness of the code if they are one-offs.
      - operatingthetan 10mo ago
        My thought is that many of them thought their products were one-offs but were actually not in practice.
    - ryoshu 10mo ago
      SAP or Salesforce can do anything. Or you can write custom code for a fraction of the price for small/medium sized businesses.
  - bryanrasmussen 10mo ago
    yeah sorry I've seen one off carpentry projects for lots of money and I've worked on software projects for individual companies, and it's not really comparable (especially going back to the earlier post that started this, which I thought was not discussing say the newest spotify competitor or something similar) however I suppose at the point where I need to explain that and all the ways in which the two things are dissimilar it becomes a book in itself.
    - phil21 10mo ago
      We are all talking about exceptions to the exception at this point. It's typically uninteresting to discuss... But at the risk of being uninteresting, I know of incredibly niche software projects that were done for a single rich benefactor as one-offs simply for their personal use-case and no one else. Years in the making and quite well paid. In one case effectively lifetime employment for the sole developer. They are obviously incredibly rare, but they do exist. However, they are totally irrelevant to discuss in this context since it's a rounding error of 1% of 1% of current developers who would get such roles either via luck or skill.
brailsafe 10mo ago
> There will still be fine programmers developing software by hand after AI is good enough for most. This fallacy seems to be brought up very frequently, that there are still blacksmiths; people who ride horses; people who use typewriters; even people who use fountain pens, but they don't really exist in any practical or economical sense outside of 10 years ago Portland, OR. No technological advancement that I'm aware of completely eliminates one's ability to pursue a discipline as a hobbyist or as a niche for rich people. It's rarely impossible, but I don't think that's ever anyone's point. Sometimes they even make a comeback, like vinyl records. The scope of the topic seems to be what the usual one is, which is the chain of incentives that enable the pursuit of something as a persuasive exchange of value, particularly that of a market that needs a certain amount of volume and doesn't have shady protectionism working for it like standard textbooks. With writing, like with other liberal arts, it's far from a new target of parental scrutiny, and it's my impression that those disciplines have long been the pursuit of people who can largely get away with not really needing a viable source of income, particularly during the apprentice and journeyman stages. Programming has been largely been exempt from that, but if I were in the midst of a traditional comp sci program, facing the existential dreads that are U.S and Canadian economies (at least), along with the effective collapse of a path to financial stability, I'd be stupid not to be considering a major pivot; to what, I don't know.
- uxcolumbo 10mo ago
  Things that won't be automated anytime soon, like plumbers or electricians. Or double down on applied ML?
  - mhb 10mo ago
    Nurses.
    - tharkun__ 10mo ago
      A lot of nurses leave the profession because of the abysmal financial and working conditions.
ponector 10mo ago
Yet usually woodworking is not a viable business. As a craft - sure. As a day job to provide for your family - not really. Guys who created a custom tables for me five years ago are out of business. Pretty much the same story with any craft.
- sojournerc 10mo ago
  Right, nobody needs cabinets or doors because... AI. /s I'm a professional woodworker. One-off tables in a garage might not be a great business, but millwork, built-ins, and cabinetry in homes is a great business. You're likely not exposed to cabinet or architectural woodwork shops that build high-end homes, or that just do renovation for that matter.
  - wat10000 10mo ago
    That’s the point. It used to be something almost everyone bought. Now it’s relegated to high-end luxury. The craft still exists, and you can still do well, but it’s much diminished. It’s not that nobody needs cabinets or doors. It’s that automation, transportation, and economies of scale have made it much cheaper to produce those things with machines in a factory.
  - bsder 10mo ago
    > One-off tables in a garage might not be a great business, but millwork, built-ins, and cabinetry in homes is a great business. I'd like to see numbers backing that up. My personal impression is that you have a small number of custom woodworkers hustling after an ever smaller number of rich clients. That seems like exactly the same problem.
  - ivell 10mo ago
    A better comparison to Ikea vs Handcraft would be shrinkwrap software vs custom software for companies. With AI, the custom software industry is getting disrupted (if the current trajectory of improvements continue). In case of woodcraft, there is some tangible result that can be appreciated and displayed as art. In case of custom software, there is no such displayability.
borroka 10mo ago
This comparison is hardly apt in the way it is formulated, but it is fitting when considering tailors and seamstresses. A few decades ago, numerous tailors made custom-made clothes and skilled seamstresses repaired them. Today, since clothes are made by machines and the cost of production has fallen significantly, making bespoke clothes has become a niche job, almost extinct, and instead of repairing clothes, people prefer to buy new ones. These jobs have not disappeared, but they have become much less common and attractive.

CuriouslyC 10mo ago

What is the inherent value of being able to write well? Is it not possible that people consider their craft to exist at a higher level than the written word? For example, writing facile prose is a very different from being a good storyteller. How many brilliant stories has the world missed out on because the people who imagined them didn't have the confidence with prose to share them.

andsoitis 10mo ago
Your last sentence is one answer to the question you ask in the first sentence.
- LoganDark 10mo ago
  That's a common usage of a rhetorical question. You ask it and then you answer it.
  - andsoitis 10mo ago
    > common usage of a rhetorical question. You ask it and then you answer it. A rhetorical question is a question asked for effect rather than to get an answer. If you have to explicitly answer the question it is not rhetorical.

pinewurst 10mo ago

I have to disagree. My brother-in-law has started to use ChatGPT to punch up his personal letters and they’ve become excerpts from lesser 70s sitcoms. From actually personal and relevant to disturbingly soulless.

mikestorrent 10mo ago
Right? If I could get the same output by just talking to AI myself, what's the point of the human connection? Be something, be someone. Be wrong or a little rude from time to time, it's still more genuine.
- pinewurst 10mo ago
  His last letter was an update on a serious health issue. I care. It's not supposed to be a yuck fest, especially inorganic AI sludge.
  - alpinisme 10mo ago
    I’m honestly stunned that people use AI for personal communication. It seems so alien to me.
    - shermantanktop 10mo ago
      You don’t think your comment would be improved by including an emoji of an alien? And maybe a telephone? The “tells” for AI are - as of this writing - very obvious. I assume they will disappear over time.
      - foxglacier 10mo ago
        The obvious tells are obvious. The less obvious ones fool you so you don't learn them. There's no feedback. You sound like a schoolteacher saying "My students don't cheat on exams. I'd know if they did!" For starters, you can just tell the AI to write in the style of a HN commenter, or whatever.

lokar 10mo ago

LLLMs replace bad writing with mediocre writing

zdragnar 10mo ago
One thing getting better at writing does is make you better at organizing your thoughts. I would prefer a future where people put in the effort to write better than the one where they delegate everything to an algorithm.
- lokar 10mo ago
  100% Working with Jr engineers I found a really strong correlation (even with native speakers of American English) between clear writing (longer email, design docs, etc) and good code. Writing is thinking

baubino 10mo ago

LLMs will make mediocre and bad writers think they are good writers. It will also make consumers of said mediocre and bad writing think they are consuming worthwhile stuff. Not only will writing get worse but expectations for it will sink as well. (I’ve written this in the future tense but this is all in fact happening already. Amid the slop, decent writing stands out more.)