5 ms·

This is an insane response to someone having their carefully written work casually bastardized by an LLM that rewrote the entire design spec without even being

by cthor 6mo ago

This is an insane response to someone having their carefully written work casually bastardized by an LLM that rewrote the entire design spec without even being informed. The amount of institutional noise generated by such carelessness far exceeds whatever improvement in readability you could possibly imagine. Any criticism you could aim at the original text that you don't even have on hand (i.e. are completely speculating wrt its readability) you could direct 100x over at the manager's horrible communication skills.

mjburgess 6mo ago
You're assuming malign motivations, I'm assuming misplaced ones. It seems more likely to me the manager tried to read it and struggled, then generated something of equivalent size or larger. I'm taking it the generated document passed around was actually at least as large as the one-pager, and hence entirely pointless to rephrase even with the malign motivations you're assuming. Since the poster here wears his personality and writing motivations on his sleeve, it is very obvious to me that he writes at cross purposes with those who read. he says very clearly: he writes for precision, expended a vast cognitive effort per word. Even if, in this instance, my analysis is wrong -- its a comment for the poster here worth considering. Because people don't like to read writing which has taken such effort to produce, because it then requires a great effort to read.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 6mo ago
  When I read documentation, I'm not there to enjoy the experience. I'm there to find out how the documented thing works and how to use it. It's not a novel. I'm not there for entertainment. Chasing readability without maintaining accuracy is a failure in the context of documentation no matter the motivations involved. I'm not saying that readability can't be a consideration when making documentation. I am saying that if you discard accuracy in the process, you've fucked up quite badly. This anecdote would likely be very different if the AI-modified version had been passed back to engineering for a review before sending it out.
  - crispyambulance 6mo ago
    > I'm not saying that readability can't be a consideration when making documentation. I am saying that if you discard accuracy in the process, you've fucked up quite badly. You're right to elevate accuracy to a high level of importance, but that is NOT ENOUGH if the thing is has poor readability. The audience has to be able to understand the document if the document is to be useable. There's only a certain amount of effort anyone can deliver in producing a document. But if the author can't deliver readability, they need to follow up the document with a lot of support and/or get some help to make it useable.
    - sjsdaiuasgdia 6mo ago
      I've struggled through some absolutely awful documentation over the years. I'll put up with incredibly broken English and other problems as long as the accuracy is there. Just last week I encountered a pinout diagram that used emojis to indicate which pins related to which data channel. Not a choice I would have made, and I found it made the diagram harder to read. But it was accurate - I wired it up per the diagram and everything worked as intended. Documentation lacking accuracy is useless. It can be the most readable thing ever produced, but if it describes a different thing than what was intended to be documented, it's trash. Documentation that is hard to read but is accurate still has value. Regarding "follow up the document with a lot of support" - did you catch the part of the anecdote where the author is having to deal with support requests because of the inaccuracies?
- pwdisswordfishq 6mo ago
  > You're assuming malign motivations, I'm assuming misplaced ones. Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
  - butlike 6mo ago
    And sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I'm not seeing the point.
  - moffers 6mo ago
    Or, to put another way, “never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance”
  - MichaelZuo 6mo ago
    Bingo, it’s pointless trying to suss out beyond a certain threshold. Just assume it’s a mix.
- nicoburns 6mo ago
  > It seems more likely to me the manager tried to read it and struggled, then generated something of equivalent size or larger. Either way, it's poor management to interpose oneself between employees. As a manager you should be connecting groups of people to talk to each other directly, not injecting oneself as a go between. If they have issues understanding the material they're much better off asking the OP directly than asking the manager who doesn't understand it either. And they'll be in a much better place to do that if they have read the material OP actually wrote.
  - mjburgess 6mo ago
    Well, OP can learn from the experience or turn it into a hill to die on. Learning doesn't imply you were ever wrong, only that something you did produced an unintended result -- people are themselves problems to navigate around, not people whose actions you have to read as judgements.
  - godelski 6mo ago
    > it's poor management to interpose oneself between employees. I didn't interpret mjburgess as defending the manager or even condoning the action. In fact, I read their comments as recognizing that action as a failure. The difference is that mj was trying to give advice to donatj, and donatj can't control what their manager does. So the advice is crafted such that it gives actionable suggestions to donatj. Yet, that might not be the correct interpretation. I don't know, I'm some third party, like you. Personally I agree that this is poor management but I don't think just blaming the problem on the manager solves anything, it just leaves the problem broken. So the things to do are either fix the problem or figure out how to work with the broken thing.
    - watwut 6mo ago
      > So the things to do are either fix the problem or figure out how to work with the broken thing. So, I will say that if you did not seen or read a text in question, there is no way for you to accurately diagnose issues with the text and give out advice on how to make it better. Such advice from someone who simply assumes the way the text was wrong based on some manager rewriting it with ai is less then useless. It is, frankly, ridiculous to think one can give meaningful advice about text you have never seen. And then double down in comments.
- nh23423fefe 6mo ago
  > Because people don't like to read writing which has taken such effort to produce, because it then requires a great effort to read. I disagree, but stipulate that. Why would this be reasonable behavior when doing knowledge work?
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
- watwut 6mo ago
  > You're assuming malign motivations, I'm assuming misplaced ones. And in the process, you give zero benefit of the doubt to OP. You just assume he wrote it badly.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - 3form 6mo ago
    I see this behavior in many people, usually conflict averse. In a poor attempt to mediate, spread incompetence like butter on a slice of bread. Ranges from tiring to infuriating.
- lamasery 6mo ago
  I would assume the manager's a terrible reader and writer. Most people are. Most managers are. It's one of those upsetting things I've learned about the world as an adult, that's sharply contrary to what I believed as a child. I kept being surprised by all kinds of things until I began really to appreciate that, simply, most folks aren't especially literate. Even ones who attend and attain degrees from universities—surely at least nearly-all of those people can read and understand "college level" texts with some fluency? But no, that's, somehow, not even close to true.
- klustregrif 6mo ago
  > It seems more likely to me the manager tried to read it and struggled Well obviously the manager struggled to read and understand it and also struggled to read the AI results. The clear root cause is utter incompetence on the managers part. Any feedback they wanted to give could be given, but you NEVER pass along modified documents as though they where what another author had created AI or not. If you don’t like it you can provide feedback or ask to coauthor another document, you never just append TFTFY with changes and send it along with the original author standing to take the consequences of whatever you cooked up. It’s just complete incompetence on the part of the manager.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
butlike 6mo ago
If you remove AI from the conversation, it still sounds like he needs an editor.
plumbees 6mo ago
I thought the reply was generally helpful. Something to consider about in my equally exacting wording as I share the same frustration as the original comment and this give me a framework to view possible issues with my own writing. I.E. You can't change what others will do, you can only change what you yourself do. In this case: Carefully crafted exacting documentation is being ignored = frustrating to me = can't change if others don't want to read it =;;; sorry I have a more elegant way to do this: My meaning is thus: While it is sometimes easier and apt to blame others for their actions, blaming others doesn't actually contribute to any meaningful growth or change. If you take on the blame yourself, even if 100% of the blame falls on the somebody else, then it leads to open ended questions on how that process can be better. Given that you have no control over other people, blaming yourself shifts the issue back onto you for a solution. This can reveal a treasure trove of oppurtunities not before explored. It can be as simple as understanding that there are different levels of technical documentation: How-tos, vs explanitory, vs laymen, etc. Or it could lead to a different exploration as to: How did I end up in this situation, what is the mistake that *I* made? Which could be an easy fix or it can be a philosophical or temporal fix. I made the mistake of: + Assuming people cared about this as much as I do + Allow another person to control then narrative: (I could have sent it out to stake holders myself; and bare whatever consequences from my hiearchy) + Not written any documentation and given the endpoints to an AI to communicate to laymens (because I may or may not have communication skills) + Take a course in communication The list goes on and on, but the beauty is that sometimes it's truely and deeply philosophical such as, because I trusted somebody who wasn't to be trusted; because I'm in the wrong place and *know* I know I should be here. Shifting the blame to the self is less about accepting blame and more about introspection and it is the most valuable lesson I learned from my wife when we first started dating. (It help me identify that as a person I tend to blame others first before blaming myself, and to spend 10 years practicing the muscle to reverse that order) TLDR: You have willpower, use it by taking ownership over yourself. This is a learned skill and is not enate and requires breaking preconceptions and stepping out of yourself to find.
- plumbees 6mo ago
  Based on other comments in the thread but not any direct reply to mine. I would also express that I was surprised when a coworker of mine complained that nobody read message boxes we put up to help the user. It was my first corporate job and I had already learned and ingrained from my experience at a small office that nobody reads technical instructions either. That alas also requires training. Usually by having the documentation open and doing exactly what is written with them watching, or with them doing (better). (Helps reveal gaps in documentation such as, Oh most users don't know how to traverse a file system, let alone what one is... how?, It's an analogy to office filings which they did everyday? why??? I never understood but, alas I've never been able to teach somebody who doesn't understand the file system, the file system.... my weakness)
MollyRealized 5mo ago
It is not insane, but we are talking at cross-purposes here. It is not insane to tell someone to write for their audience.

by cthor 6mo ago

mjburgess 6mo ago

You're assuming malign motivations, I'm assuming misplaced ones. It seems more likely to me the manager tried to read it and struggled, then generated something of equivalent size or larger. I'm taking it the generated document passed around was actually at least as large as the one-pager, and hence entirely pointless to rephrase even with the malign motivations you're assuming. Since the poster here wears his personality and writing motivations on his sleeve, it is very obvious to me that he writes at cross purposes with those who read. he says very clearly: he writes for precision, expended a vast cognitive effort per word. Even if, in this instance, my analysis is wrong -- its a comment for the poster here worth considering. Because people don't like to read writing which has taken such effort to produce, because it then requires a great effort to read.

sjsdaiuasgdia 6mo ago
When I read documentation, I'm not there to enjoy the experience. I'm there to find out how the documented thing works and how to use it. It's not a novel. I'm not there for entertainment. Chasing readability without maintaining accuracy is a failure in the context of documentation no matter the motivations involved. I'm not saying that readability can't be a consideration when making documentation. I am saying that if you discard accuracy in the process, you've fucked up quite badly. This anecdote would likely be very different if the AI-modified version had been passed back to engineering for a review before sending it out.
- crispyambulance 6mo ago
  > I'm not saying that readability can't be a consideration when making documentation. I am saying that if you discard accuracy in the process, you've fucked up quite badly. You're right to elevate accuracy to a high level of importance, but that is NOT ENOUGH if the thing is has poor readability. The audience has to be able to understand the document if the document is to be useable. There's only a certain amount of effort anyone can deliver in producing a document. But if the author can't deliver readability, they need to follow up the document with a lot of support and/or get some help to make it useable.
  - sjsdaiuasgdia 6mo ago
    I've struggled through some absolutely awful documentation over the years. I'll put up with incredibly broken English and other problems as long as the accuracy is there. Just last week I encountered a pinout diagram that used emojis to indicate which pins related to which data channel. Not a choice I would have made, and I found it made the diagram harder to read. But it was accurate - I wired it up per the diagram and everything worked as intended. Documentation lacking accuracy is useless. It can be the most readable thing ever produced, but if it describes a different thing than what was intended to be documented, it's trash. Documentation that is hard to read but is accurate still has value. Regarding "follow up the document with a lot of support" - did you catch the part of the anecdote where the author is having to deal with support requests because of the inaccuracies?
pwdisswordfishq 6mo ago
> You're assuming malign motivations, I'm assuming misplaced ones. Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
- butlike 6mo ago
  And sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I'm not seeing the point.
- moffers 6mo ago
  Or, to put another way, “never attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance”
- MichaelZuo 6mo ago
  Bingo, it’s pointless trying to suss out beyond a certain threshold. Just assume it’s a mix.
nicoburns 6mo ago
> It seems more likely to me the manager tried to read it and struggled, then generated something of equivalent size or larger. Either way, it's poor management to interpose oneself between employees. As a manager you should be connecting groups of people to talk to each other directly, not injecting oneself as a go between. If they have issues understanding the material they're much better off asking the OP directly than asking the manager who doesn't understand it either. And they'll be in a much better place to do that if they have read the material OP actually wrote.
- mjburgess 6mo ago
  Well, OP can learn from the experience or turn it into a hill to die on. Learning doesn't imply you were ever wrong, only that something you did produced an unintended result -- people are themselves problems to navigate around, not people whose actions you have to read as judgements.
- godelski 6mo ago
  > it's poor management to interpose oneself between employees. I didn't interpret mjburgess as defending the manager or even condoning the action. In fact, I read their comments as recognizing that action as a failure. The difference is that mj was trying to give advice to donatj, and donatj can't control what their manager does. So the advice is crafted such that it gives actionable suggestions to donatj. Yet, that might not be the correct interpretation. I don't know, I'm some third party, like you. Personally I agree that this is poor management but I don't think just blaming the problem on the manager solves anything, it just leaves the problem broken. So the things to do are either fix the problem or figure out how to work with the broken thing.
  - watwut 6mo ago
    > So the things to do are either fix the problem or figure out how to work with the broken thing. So, I will say that if you did not seen or read a text in question, there is no way for you to accurately diagnose issues with the text and give out advice on how to make it better. Such advice from someone who simply assumes the way the text was wrong based on some manager rewriting it with ai is less then useless. It is, frankly, ridiculous to think one can give meaningful advice about text you have never seen. And then double down in comments.
nh23423fefe 6mo ago
> Because people don't like to read writing which has taken such effort to produce, because it then requires a great effort to read. I disagree, but stipulate that. Why would this be reasonable behavior when doing knowledge work?
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
watwut 6mo ago
> You're assuming malign motivations, I'm assuming misplaced ones. And in the process, you give zero benefit of the doubt to OP. You just assume he wrote it badly.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- 3form 6mo ago
  I see this behavior in many people, usually conflict averse. In a poor attempt to mediate, spread incompetence like butter on a slice of bread. Ranges from tiring to infuriating.
lamasery 6mo ago
I would assume the manager's a terrible reader and writer. Most people are. Most managers are. It's one of those upsetting things I've learned about the world as an adult, that's sharply contrary to what I believed as a child. I kept being surprised by all kinds of things until I began really to appreciate that, simply, most folks aren't especially literate. Even ones who attend and attain degrees from universities—surely at least nearly-all of those people can read and understand "college level" texts with some fluency? But no, that's, somehow, not even close to true.
klustregrif 6mo ago
> It seems more likely to me the manager tried to read it and struggled Well obviously the manager struggled to read and understand it and also struggled to read the AI results. The clear root cause is utter incompetence on the managers part. Any feedback they wanted to give could be given, but you NEVER pass along modified documents as though they where what another author had created AI or not. If you don’t like it you can provide feedback or ask to coauthor another document, you never just append TFTFY with changes and send it along with the original author standing to take the consequences of whatever you cooked up. It’s just complete incompetence on the part of the manager.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

butlike 6mo ago

If you remove AI from the conversation, it still sounds like he needs an editor.

plumbees 6mo ago

I thought the reply was generally helpful. Something to consider about in my equally exacting wording as I share the same frustration as the original comment and this give me a framework to view possible issues with my own writing. I.E. You can't change what others will do, you can only change what you yourself do. In this case: Carefully crafted exacting documentation is being ignored = frustrating to me = can't change if others don't want to read it =;;; sorry I have a more elegant way to do this: My meaning is thus: While it is sometimes easier and apt to blame others for their actions, blaming others doesn't actually contribute to any meaningful growth or change. If you take on the blame yourself, even if 100% of the blame falls on the somebody else, then it leads to open ended questions on how that process can be better. Given that you have no control over other people, blaming yourself shifts the issue back onto you for a solution. This can reveal a treasure trove of oppurtunities not before explored. It can be as simple as understanding that there are different levels of technical documentation: How-tos, vs explanitory, vs laymen, etc. Or it could lead to a different exploration as to: How did I end up in this situation, what is the mistake that *I* made? Which could be an easy fix or it can be a philosophical or temporal fix. I made the mistake of: + Assuming people cared about this as much as I do + Allow another person to control then narrative: (I could have sent it out to stake holders myself; and bare whatever consequences from my hiearchy) + Not written any documentation and given the endpoints to an AI to communicate to laymens (because I may or may not have communication skills) + Take a course in communication The list goes on and on, but the beauty is that sometimes it's truely and deeply philosophical such as, because I trusted somebody who wasn't to be trusted; because I'm in the wrong place and *know* I know I should be here. Shifting the blame to the self is less about accepting blame and more about introspection and it is the most valuable lesson I learned from my wife when we first started dating. (It help me identify that as a person I tend to blame others first before blaming myself, and to spend 10 years practicing the muscle to reverse that order) TLDR: You have willpower, use it by taking ownership over yourself. This is a learned skill and is not enate and requires breaking preconceptions and stepping out of yourself to find.

plumbees 6mo ago
Based on other comments in the thread but not any direct reply to mine. I would also express that I was surprised when a coworker of mine complained that nobody read message boxes we put up to help the user. It was my first corporate job and I had already learned and ingrained from my experience at a small office that nobody reads technical instructions either. That alas also requires training. Usually by having the documentation open and doing exactly what is written with them watching, or with them doing (better). (Helps reveal gaps in documentation such as, Oh most users don't know how to traverse a file system, let alone what one is... how?, It's an analogy to office filings which they did everyday? why??? I never understood but, alas I've never been able to teach somebody who doesn't understand the file system, the file system.... my weakness)

MollyRealized 5mo ago

It is not insane, but we are talking at cross-purposes here. It is not insane to tell someone to write for their audience.