4 ms·
Tl;dr: Over sixteen thousand words about how the author doesn’t really use language models very much but might in the future
by jrflowers 8mo ago
Tl;dr:
Over sixteen thousand words about how the author doesn’t really use language models very much but might in the future
- adampunk 8mo agoBully for them I guess. Thanks for finishing that.
- AnimalMuppet 8mo agoEither they actually wrote all that on their own, or they had an LLM spew it. Either way, why? They had a valid point; you don't have to use LLMs to write your stuff. Why bury that point in this insane pile of verbiage? But thanks for saving the rest of us. This is why I read the comments first.
- wewewedxfgdf 8mo agoA tweet might have sufficed?
- jrflowers 8mo ago>Either they actually wrote all that on their own, or they had an LLM spew it. Either way, why? I mostly skimmed it. It’s entirely feasible that the author buried a confession about getting away with manslaughter or whatever that I missed somewhere in a few sentences in the middle of that novella though. It does begin with several paragraphs essentially telling you not to read the post and has a lot of completely unnecessary exposition (for example the section on Luddites) Edit: I want to point out that I went over the post with my own eyeballs and brain
- mirawelner 8mo ago...because reading and writing well-written prose is meaningful and enjoyable? It feels like half the people here do not read or write in their free time, which would be understandable if this were not primarily a site for software engineers who write (sorta) as a job
- csande17 8mo agoIt is funny how that's basically one of the core points the article makes -- and in fact the article paints Hacker News commentors specifically as people who don't see that kind of inherent value in craft and artistry -- but the AI-generated summaries those people are relying on have missed it completely.
- mirawelner 8mo agoI actually disagreed with that particular point made in the article, because I don't really see myself as somebody who sees value in craft and artistry, I just want effective code that works (which imho LLMs cannot create). But after reading this comment section... I mean if enjoying well written prose counts as enjoying craft and artistry I guess I do then? Damn.
- jrflowers 8mo ago> because reading and writing well-written prose is meaningful and enjoyable? This is not prose, it is exposition. It is perfectly valid to critique any expository essay, especially one of this length, for its density (or lack thereof) of substantive information.
- mirawelner 8mo agoI somewhat disagree that this is not prose? This didn't seem like a purely expository piece. Like if it were just a straightforward technical piece than yeah its way to long, it could have been a few sentences. But this seemed like it bridges the gap between prose and an expository essay -it was doing both.
- jrflowers 8mo ago> prose and an expository essay -it was doing both. Putting prose in an essay means there are more valid criticisms of a piece of writing, not fewer. If somebody is breakdancing and reciting the periodic table at the same time it’s ok if somebody notices if they skipped the lanthanides and actinides. I’m a fan of blending the two! It’s just really really hard to do both well at the same time. My most recent example is Malcolm Harris’ history of Palo Alto, it is incredibly well-done.
- logicprog 8mo agoBecause it was, even if you disagree with it, beautifully written, emotionally resonant, full of funny jokes and cute stories and metaphors, and states well — and encapsulates — all of the nuances and sub-arguments of its side of the argument?
- xigoi 8mo agoBecause the article says much more than that and your LLM summary misses all the nuance.
- amoss 8mo agoI would imagine that the target audience has an attention span and literacy level that allows reading sixteen thousand words without too much trouble.
- jrflowers 8mo agoI like the idea that people are downvoting and not rebutting a summary because they think that an accurate summary will cause folks to not read sixteen thousand words that they would otherwise. It’s kind of agreement by dissent