5 ms·

I agree with your parent that the AI writing style is incredibly frustrating. Is there a difficulty with making a pass, reading every sentence of what was writt

I agree with your parent that the AI writing style is incredibly frustrating. Is there a difficulty with making a pass, reading every sentence of what was written, and then rewriting in your own words when you see AI cliches? It makes it difficult to trust the substance when the lack of effort in form is evident.

terracatta 9mo ago
Will do better next time.
- luisln 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - lkbm 9mo ago
    I appreciate the support for the author, but the dismissal of critics as non-content producers misses that he's replying to Dan Abramov, primary author of the React documentation, and a pretty good intro Javascript course, among other things.
  - Lalabadie 9mo ago
    That reply was from Dan Abramov, feel free to go see how little work and writing he's doing.
  - usefulposter 9mo ago
    Your comment on HN, 6 days ago: >No one actually wants to spend their time reading AI slop comments that all sound the same. Lol. Lmao even.
- ryandrake 9mo ago
  Great that you are open to feedback! I wish every blogger could hear and internalize this but I'm just a lowly HN poster with no reach, so I'll just piss into the wind here: You're probably a really good writer, and when you are a good writer, people want to hear your authentic voice. When an author uses AI, even "just a little to clean things up" it taints the whole piece. It's like they farted in the room. Everyone can smell it and everyone knows they did it. When I'm half way through an article and I smell it, I kind of just give up in disgust. If I wanted to hear what an LLM thought about a topic, I'd just ask an LLM--they are very accessible now. We go to HN and read blogs and articles because we want to hear what a human thinks about it.
  - JoshTriplett 9mo ago
    Seconding this. Your voice has value. Every time, every time, I've seen someone say "I use an LLM to make my writing better" and they post what it looked like before or other samples of their non-LLM writing, the non-LLM writing is always what I'd prefer. Without fail. People talk about using it because they don't think their English is good enough, and then it turns out their English is fine and they just weren't confident in it. People talk about using it to make their writing "better", and their original made their point better and more concisely. And their original tends to be more memorable, as well, perhaps because it isn't homogenized.
  - seemaze 9mo ago
    I'm particularly fond of your fart analogy. It successfully captures the current AI zeitgeist for me.
InsideOutSanta 9mo ago
My suspicion is that the problem here is pretty simple: people publishing articles that contain these kinds of LLM-ass LLMisms don't mind and don't notice them. I spotted this recently on Reddit. There are tons of very obviously bot-generated or LLM-written posts, but there are also always clearly real people in the comments who just don't realize that they're responding to a bot.
- deaux 9mo ago
  I see this by far the most on Github out of all places.
  - pandemic_region 9mo ago
    I am seeing it more and more here as well to be honest.
    - deaux 9mo ago
      I called one out here recently with very obvious evidence - clear LLM comments on entirely different posts 35 seconds apart with plenty of hallmarks - but soon got a reply "I'm not a bot, how unfair!". Duh, most of them are approved/generated manually, doesn't mean it wasn't directly copy-pasted from an LLM without even looking at it.
- rustyhancock 9mo ago
  I think it's because LLMs are very good at tuning into the what the user wants the text to look like. But if you're outside that and looking in the text usually screams AI. I see this all the time with job applications even those that think they "rewrote it all". You are tempted to think the LLMs suggestion is acceptable far more than you would have produced it yourself. It reminds me of the Red Dwarf episode Camille. It can't be all things to all people at the same time.
  - ffsm8 9mo ago
    People are way worse at detecting LLM written short form content (like comments, blogs, articles etc) then they believe themselves to be... With CVs/job applications? I guarantee you, if you'd actually do a real blind trial, you'd be wrong so often that you'd be embarrassed. It does become detectable over time, as you get to know their own writing style etc, but it's bonkas people still think they're able to make these detections on first contact. The only reason you can hold that opinion is because you're never notified of the countless false positives and false negatives you've had. There is a reason why the LLMs keep doing the same linguistic phrases like it's not x, it's y and numbered lists with Emojis etc... and that's because people have been doing that forever.
beepbooptheory 9mo ago
There is surely no difficulty, but can you provide an example of what you mean? Just because I don't see it here. Or at least like, if I read a blog from some saas company pre-LLM era, I'd expect it to sound like this. I get the call for "effort" but recently this feels like its being used to critique the thing without engaging. HN has a policy about not complaining about the website itself when someone posts some content within it. These kinds of complaints are starting to feel applicable to the spirit of that rule. Just in their sheer number and noise and potential to derail from something substantive. But maybe that's just me. If you feel like the content is low effort, you can respond by not engaging with it? Just some thoughts!
- deaux 9mo ago
  It's incredibly bad on this article. It stands out more because it's so wrong and the content itself could actually be interesting. Normally anything with this level of slop wouldn't even be worth reading if it wasn't slop. But let me help you see the light. I'm on mobile so forgive my lack of proper formatting. -- Because it’s not just that agents can be dangerous once they’re installed. The ecosystem that distributes their capabilities and skill registries has already become an attack surface. ^ Okay, once can happen. At least he clearly rewrote the LLM output a little. That means a malicious “skill” is not just an OpenClaw problem. It is a distribution mechanism that can travel across any agent ecosystem that supports the same standard. ^ Oh oh.. Markdown isn’t “content” in an agent ecosystem. Markdown is an installer. ^ Oh no. The key point is that this was not “a suspicious link.” This was a complete execution chain disguised as setup instructions. ^ At this point my eyes start bleeding. This is the type of malware that doesn’t just “infect your computer.” It raids everything valuable on that device ^ Please make it stop. Skills need provenance. Execution needs mediation. Permissions need to be specific, revocable, and continuously enforced, not granted once and forgotten. ^ Here's what it taught me about B2B sales. This wasn’t an isolated case. It was a campaign. ^ This isn't just any slop. It's ultraslop. Not a one-off malicious upload. A deliberate strategy: use “skills” as the distribution channel, and “prerequisites” as the social engineering wrapper. ^ Not your run-of-the-mill slop, but some of the worst slop. -- I feel kind of sorry for making you see it, as it might deprive you of enjoying future slop. But you asked for it, and I'm happy to provide. I'm not the person you replied to, but I imagine he'd give the same examples. Personally, I couldn't care less if you use AI to help you write. I care about it not being the type of slurry that pre-AI was easily avoided by staying off of LinkedIn.
tencentshill 9mo ago
But they "wrote" it in 10% of the time. It implies there are better uses of their time than writing this article.
- freeone3000 9mo ago
  Then there are better uses of my time than reading it.

terracatta 9mo ago

Will do better next time.

luisln 9mo ago
[flagged]
- lkbm 9mo ago
  I appreciate the support for the author, but the dismissal of critics as non-content producers misses that he's replying to Dan Abramov, primary author of the React documentation, and a pretty good intro Javascript course, among other things.
- Lalabadie 9mo ago
  That reply was from Dan Abramov, feel free to go see how little work and writing he's doing.
- usefulposter 9mo ago
  Your comment on HN, 6 days ago: >No one actually wants to spend their time reading AI slop comments that all sound the same. Lol. Lmao even.
ryandrake 9mo ago
Great that you are open to feedback! I wish every blogger could hear and internalize this but I'm just a lowly HN poster with no reach, so I'll just piss into the wind here: You're probably a really good writer, and when you are a good writer, people want to hear your authentic voice. When an author uses AI, even "just a little to clean things up" it taints the whole piece. It's like they farted in the room. Everyone can smell it and everyone knows they did it. When I'm half way through an article and I smell it, I kind of just give up in disgust. If I wanted to hear what an LLM thought about a topic, I'd just ask an LLM--they are very accessible now. We go to HN and read blogs and articles because we want to hear what a human thinks about it.
- JoshTriplett 9mo ago
  Seconding this. Your voice has value. Every time, every time, I've seen someone say "I use an LLM to make my writing better" and they post what it looked like before or other samples of their non-LLM writing, the non-LLM writing is always what I'd prefer. Without fail. People talk about using it because they don't think their English is good enough, and then it turns out their English is fine and they just weren't confident in it. People talk about using it to make their writing "better", and their original made their point better and more concisely. And their original tends to be more memorable, as well, perhaps because it isn't homogenized.
- seemaze 9mo ago
  I'm particularly fond of your fart analogy. It successfully captures the current AI zeitgeist for me.

InsideOutSanta 9mo ago

My suspicion is that the problem here is pretty simple: people publishing articles that contain these kinds of LLM-ass LLMisms don't mind and don't notice them. I spotted this recently on Reddit. There are tons of very obviously bot-generated or LLM-written posts, but there are also always clearly real people in the comments who just don't realize that they're responding to a bot.

deaux 9mo ago
I see this by far the most on Github out of all places.
- pandemic_region 9mo ago
  I am seeing it more and more here as well to be honest.
  - deaux 9mo ago
    I called one out here recently with very obvious evidence - clear LLM comments on entirely different posts 35 seconds apart with plenty of hallmarks - but soon got a reply "I'm not a bot, how unfair!". Duh, most of them are approved/generated manually, doesn't mean it wasn't directly copy-pasted from an LLM without even looking at it.
rustyhancock 9mo ago
I think it's because LLMs are very good at tuning into the what the user wants the text to look like. But if you're outside that and looking in the text usually screams AI. I see this all the time with job applications even those that think they "rewrote it all". You are tempted to think the LLMs suggestion is acceptable far more than you would have produced it yourself. It reminds me of the Red Dwarf episode Camille. It can't be all things to all people at the same time.
- ffsm8 9mo ago
  People are way worse at detecting LLM written short form content (like comments, blogs, articles etc) then they believe themselves to be... With CVs/job applications? I guarantee you, if you'd actually do a real blind trial, you'd be wrong so often that you'd be embarrassed. It does become detectable over time, as you get to know their own writing style etc, but it's bonkas people still think they're able to make these detections on first contact. The only reason you can hold that opinion is because you're never notified of the countless false positives and false negatives you've had. There is a reason why the LLMs keep doing the same linguistic phrases like it's not x, it's y and numbered lists with Emojis etc... and that's because people have been doing that forever.

beepbooptheory 9mo ago

There is surely no difficulty, but can you provide an example of what you mean? Just because I don't see it here. Or at least like, if I read a blog from some saas company pre-LLM era, I'd expect it to sound like this. I get the call for "effort" but recently this feels like its being used to critique the thing without engaging. HN has a policy about not complaining about the website itself when someone posts some content within it. These kinds of complaints are starting to feel applicable to the spirit of that rule. Just in their sheer number and noise and potential to derail from something substantive. But maybe that's just me. If you feel like the content is low effort, you can respond by not engaging with it? Just some thoughts!

deaux 9mo ago
It's incredibly bad on this article. It stands out more because it's so wrong and the content itself could actually be interesting. Normally anything with this level of slop wouldn't even be worth reading if it wasn't slop. But let me help you see the light. I'm on mobile so forgive my lack of proper formatting. -- Because it’s not just that agents can be dangerous once they’re installed. The ecosystem that distributes their capabilities and skill registries has already become an attack surface. ^ Okay, once can happen. At least he clearly rewrote the LLM output a little. That means a malicious “skill” is not just an OpenClaw problem. It is a distribution mechanism that can travel across any agent ecosystem that supports the same standard. ^ Oh oh.. Markdown isn’t “content” in an agent ecosystem. Markdown is an installer. ^ Oh no. The key point is that this was not “a suspicious link.” This was a complete execution chain disguised as setup instructions. ^ At this point my eyes start bleeding. This is the type of malware that doesn’t just “infect your computer.” It raids everything valuable on that device ^ Please make it stop. Skills need provenance. Execution needs mediation. Permissions need to be specific, revocable, and continuously enforced, not granted once and forgotten. ^ Here's what it taught me about B2B sales. This wasn’t an isolated case. It was a campaign. ^ This isn't just any slop. It's ultraslop. Not a one-off malicious upload. A deliberate strategy: use “skills” as the distribution channel, and “prerequisites” as the social engineering wrapper. ^ Not your run-of-the-mill slop, but some of the worst slop. -- I feel kind of sorry for making you see it, as it might deprive you of enjoying future slop. But you asked for it, and I'm happy to provide. I'm not the person you replied to, but I imagine he'd give the same examples. Personally, I couldn't care less if you use AI to help you write. I care about it not being the type of slurry that pre-AI was easily avoided by staying off of LinkedIn.

tencentshill 9mo ago

But they "wrote" it in 10% of the time. It implies there are better uses of their time than writing this article.

freeone3000 9mo ago
Then there are better uses of my time than reading it.