4 ms·
>I just wrote what my brain is instructing to type (might not reread it before posting) Why would I put effort into reading something that had no effort put in
by boca_honey 7mo ago
>I just wrote what my brain is instructing to type (might not reread it before posting)
Why would I put effort into reading something that had no effort put in by the author?
This guy needs an editor, AI or otherwise.
- ianseyer 7mo ago"I think that is the beauty of writing, the raw , unedited emotions of the person behind every words either for entertainment or educational purposes, is what makes it special" - the article, clearly expressing the intent of its own mistakes and contextualizing them in the era of LLM-borne "perfect" text
- boca_honey 7mo agoI appreciate the sentiment, and good for him. However, from an audience perspective, why choose to watch a guy filming himself eating cereal with a shaky phone camera when you could watch The Sopranos? (or the latest MrBeast extravaganza, to avoid being pedantic). I guess it's OK if you enjoy reading someone expressing himself without communicating anything valuable and well produced. It's kind of like people who enjoy stream-of-consciousness poetry or unhinged personal blog posts. It's fine. But most of us (I think) read for our own gain, expecting substantial / stimulating text that is ideally well researched and serves a clear purpose. Something like that needs an editor, effective proofreading, and quite some time of work and rework.
- tadfisher 7mo agoAt this point, it is far more distracting to see LLM-isms and get completely thrown out of the reading-understanding process than to see some typos or grammatical errors. I actually feel reassured when I see something like a "they're/their" swap, because I know I am reading the author's thoughts instead of some linear algebra vaguely influenced by the author's thoughts. Five years ago, I probably would have been annoyed by the same.
- boca_honey 7mo agoAn editor's role is not fixing typos and grammar (that's the proofreader's job). The editor helps you order your thoughts, pointing out inconsistencies, redundancies, or general lapses in reasoning. When I talk about "unedited," I meant without a clear point, repetitive, unreferenced, etc, etc. I have nothing against LLMs for proofreading. I'm actually using one now to fix my grammar because English is my second language. I won't let it change my points, though... it's just for cleaning up without having to spend 3x the time on a comment, editing out minor mistakes. I'm aware this might make my posts feel less natural, but I think it's a good middle ground.
- jrflowers 7mo ago> why choose to watch a guy filming himself eating cereal with a shaky phone camera when you could watch The Sopranos? (or the latest MrBeast extravaganza, to avoid being pedantic). This is a specifically funny question because every Masaokis video is better than every MrBeast video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OERZ8Pqs9iU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OERZ8Pqs9iU
- plasticeagle 7mo ago"I think that is the beauty of writing, the raw , unedited emotions of the person behind every words either for entertainment or educational purposes, is what makes it special" This is not the beauty of writing. Everyone's writing needs editing. The "raw unedited emotions" are not something anyone wants to read, and this article is no exception. The author tells us that English is their fourth language, which is certainly impressive. However their writing is messy and poorly constructed. It's difficult to read, and not at all enjoyable. The choice is not between doggerel like this, and LLM empty perfection.
- projektfu 7mo agoI feel like French must be their first !
- saltcured 7mo agoHere's a possibly fun topic to navel gaze on... Compare thoughts on this notion of AI and authenticity in writing to the way things like auto-tuners and sequencers have been perceived in the music world. Like there are some esoteric corners of the Jazz space where musicians seem to try to emulate a sequencing machine and play perfect notes, will there be writers trying to emulate the clean AI performance? :-/
- vonunov 7mo agoWell, I mean, kind of https://i.vgy.me/UtZJt0.png https://i.vgy.me/UtZJt0.png
- kristjansson 7mo agoThe relative value of those things are shifting. As the cost of polished LLM drivel falls to zero, some might prefer even the most unedited, off-the-cuff human writing to the slop.
- balkanist 7mo ago[flagged]
- dsign 7mo agoIndeed. I for one enjoyed this piece. Yes, it had errors and lots of odd grammatical choices, but the reading remained affordably challenging and the prose had a newness to it.
- alex43578 7mo agoWhat if the reality is that both are worthless? LLM slop is of no value, but human slop doesn’t gain value because fingers typed it.
- kristjansson 7mo agoI mean there's lots of room at the bottom. but part of the reason LLM slop seems to me so objectionable is its sameness; it's obviously drawn from the same thin manifold of the language. A human articulating their own thoughts, however those may be rendered on the page, at least realizes their own idiosyncratic region of the language. Writing one's own thoughts in one's own words declares the existence of one's own language, consonant with but distinct from all the others. Asserting one's individual voice and style, even if the content is worthless and the aesthetics objectionable maintains diversity in face of the LLM monoculture. We lament the lost apples, even the bitter ones; we don't ask the birds to each justify their differences.
- fc417fc802 7mo agoIt depends on the purpose of the reader. I can learn a technical topic from an LLM but not what another person genuinely thinks. I certainly can't convince it of anything nor befriend it.
- elbasti 7mo agoThere are some people that believe that writing is an act of creative expression. In other words, that writing is primarily about the act (and as such, it's a quite selfish activity). Editing destroys the expressive act and must be avoided. These people's writing is usually incoherent and they are very proud of it. If you've ever read a bad new-age self-help book you've probably encountered writing like this. Good writers understand that writing is about communication. The initial act of writing (ie, word puke) is worthless. What matters most is a piece of writing's ability to communicate clearly. This writing is usually pleasant, concise, and clear.
- margalabargala 7mo agoI 'm sure you consider your opinion to be correct, but there is something to writing being an act of creative expression. It's fine for it to be a selfish activity. Diaries are this way, for example, and the negativity you point at other people's hobbies is unfortunate. There's something to the idea that if the writer is writing with the intention of publishing it, that should be edited. But if you're writing for yourself, and happen to simply keep your writings somewhere public, some other person's desire for you to edit more is a measurement of that other person's feeling of entitlement. I have about as much desire to read some publisher's edited version of Anne Frank's diary as you appear to have to read the original.
- encom 7mo agoFranks diary was edited, both by herself and later publishers.
- mhurron 7mo agoBy her father, not herself. She sort of died before she had an opportunity to edit her writings for publication.
- shagie 7mo agohttps://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/anne-frank-diary-how-edited-hidden-pages-father-otto-what-she-really-wrote/ https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/anne-frank-... > But the manuscript that Otto Frank pitched to Dutch editors didn’t contain his daughter’s entire diary. Anne herself had begun editing large swathes of her diary with publication in mind after hearing a radio broadcast that called on Dutch people to preserve diaries and other war documents. Otto respected some of those editorial decisions, but overlooked others – for example, he included material about Anne’s crush on annexe dweller Peter van Pels. https://www.history.com/articles/anne-frank-diary-hidden-pages-discovery https://www.history.com/articles/anne-frank-diary-hidden-pag... > Frank’s candid words on sex didn’t make it into the first published diary, which appeared in English in 1952. Though Anne herself edited her diary with an eye to publication, the book—released eight years after her death from typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at age 15—contained additional cuts. These were only partially restored in 1986, when a critical edition of her diary was published. Then, in 1995, an even less censored version, including a passage on Frank’s own body previously withheld by her father, was published. https://research.annefrank.org/en/gebeurtenissen/b0725097-67d8-4df2-886e-9df866faec66/ https://research.annefrank.org/en/gebeurtenissen/b0725097-67... > In response to Minister Bolkestein's appeal on 28 March 1944 on Radio Oranje to keep wartime diaries and letters, Anne Frank decided to rewrite her diary into a novel: "Imagine how interesting it would be if I published a novel of the Secret Annex, from the title alone people would think it was a detective novel." > Anne rewrote and edited her diary on loose sheets of duplicator paper. On Saturday 20 May 1944, she wrote: "Dear Kitty, At last after much contemplation I have begun my 'the Secret Annex', in my head it is already as finished as it can be, but in reality it will be a lot slower, if it ever gets finished at all." Anne's rewritten version, known as Version B, ends with the diary entry of 29 March 1944.
- ollysb 7mo agoWhile I can get behind the sentiment I hope bad writing doesn't become the standard for anti AI. A simple grammar check would have greatly improved this post.
- dpark 7mo agoAI has plenty of training data on poor writing. If people start looking for bad grammar and typos to identify human articles, generative AI is certainly capable of spitting out prose that looks poorly edited. I kind of hope the anti-AI-writing stuff passes and we can focus on what makes writing good or bad again instead of “this is clearly AI” posted in response to every blog. I actually don’t care if it’s AI but I do care if it’s worth reading and pleasant to read.
- bluefirebrand 7mo ago> I actually don’t care if it’s AI but I do care if it’s worth reading and pleasant to read I do care if it's AI. It makes it automatically not worth reading imo
- JDups 7mo agoWhen most of the AI written blog posts are just written via a "write a blog post about X" prompt. I don't see any value in reading any of it. If I want to know what ChatGPT thinks of a given subject I'd just ask it directly.
- prewett 7mo agoSeemed like satire to me. The author is pretty intentionally oblivious, and even suggests that other people see flaws in their writing that they don’t see. Also, the most egregious errors are right after comments about grammar and such.
- throw4847285 7mo agoWriting is editing.