3 ms·
It's just good writing structure. I get the feeling many people hadn't been exposed to good structure before LLMs. LLMs can definitely have a tone, but it is p
by ehnto 8mo ago
It's just good writing structure. I get the feeling many people hadn't been exposed to good structure before LLMs.
LLMs can definitely have a tone, but it is pretty annoying that every time someone cares to write well, they are getting accused of sounding like an LLM instead of the other way around. LLMs were trained to write well, on human writing, it's not surprising there is crossover.
- 0xpgm 8mo agoThere is such a thing as a distinct LLM writing style that is not just good structure. Anyone who's read more than five books can tell that. And the comment itself seems completely LLM generated.
- ehnto 8mo agoIt's true that LLMs have a distinct style, but it does not preclude humans from writing in a similar style. That's where the LLMs got it from, people and training. There's certainly some emergent style that given enough text, you would likely never see from a human. But in a short comment like this, it's really not enough data to be making good judgements.
- notahacker 8mo agoThat's not just false. It's the antithesis of true. It's not just using rhetorical patterns humans also use which are in some contexts considered good writing. Its overusing them like a high schooler learning the pattern for the first time — and massively overdoing the em dashes and mixing the metaphors
- oblio 8mo agoLOL :-))
- ukuina 8mo agoNot so sure about that. There are many distinct LLM "smells" in that comment, like "A is true, but it hides something: unrelated to A" and "It's not (just) C, it's hyperbole D".
- ehnto 8mo agoSure, but you can read articles that predate LLMs which have the same so called tells.
- lelanthran 8mo ago> Sure, but you can read articles that predate LLMs which have the same so called tells. Not with such a high frequency, though. We're looking at 1 tell per sentence!
- Kiro 8mo agoI personally love that phrasing even if it's a clear tell. Comparisons work well for me to grasp an idea. I also love bullet points. So yeah, I guess I like LLM writing.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- yard2010 8mo agoYou're absolutely right, that isn't just good writing — that's poetry! Do you need further assistance?
- energy123 8mo agoContrastive parallelism is an effective rhetorical device if the goal is to persuade or engage. It's not good if your goal is more honest, like pedagogy, curious exploration, discovery. It flattens and shoves things into categorical labels, leading the discussion more towards definitions of words and other sidetracks.
- SCdF 8mo agoIf it indicates, culturally in the current zeitgeist, that an AI wrote it, it becomes a bad structure.
- ehnto 8mo agoI'd prefer we look to other trust metrics, rather than change for the sake of other's interpretation of who we are.
- rob 8mo agoOther metrics: Comment 1: 2026-02-18T23:45:12 1771458312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47067991 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47067991 Comment 2: 2026-02-18T23:45:32 1771458332 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47067994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47067994 20 seconds between comments. -- or: Comment 1: 2026-02-18T20:06:49 1771445209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47065649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47065649 Comment 2: 2026-02-18T20:07:12 1771445232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47065653 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47065653 23 seconds between comments. --- It's a bot.
- leoedin 8mo agoIt's really not "good" for many people. It's the sort of high-persuasion marketing speak that used to be limited to the blogs of glossy but shallow startups. Now it's been sucked up by LLMs and it's everywhere. If you want good writing, go and read a New Yorker.
- ehnto 8mo agoI was specifically talking about structure, less content, because yes an LLMs content is usually the airy corporate cleansed speaking I can't stand. I don't see that in the comment we are talking about mind you.