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I don't like AI-generated text at work, at all. It feels lifeless and unfocused. But what I hate the most is that it is objectively better than what I had befo
by dsign 1mo ago
I don't like AI-generated text at work, at all. It feels lifeless and unfocused.
But what I hate the most is that it is objectively better than what I had before. No typos, clear structure, and, regrettably, the verbosity and autistic obsession with detail of the LLM is more actionable and useful than the human guy who wrote lists of commands and URLs as documentation, without explaining anything. Or the colleague who writes in uppercase and with question marks and who doesn't make any sense and forces me to engage in an interrogation effort to get to the bottom of what they are trying to say. Or the colleague who simply hates writing--despite being decent at it--and will call you to give you a meandering verbal explanation that lasts two hours of what they want from you. The cynic in me bemoans that we brought this upon ourselves, in more than one way.
- collinmcnulty 1mo agoMy concern is that even if the LLM can turn your colleague's bad writing into something more coherent and actionable, is that something actually what your colleague meant to convey? It could be clear and still detached from the reality of their intention, or they may not have even formed a clear intention. If the goal of writing is to convey what's in another human's brain, that goal is failed completely.
- xpct 1mo agoI'd say my experience is different. Even from people whose communication writing I didn't find that useful, they seem to have a better frame of mind than LLMs do. Though, I never encountered people like the examples you gave.
- dsign 1mo agoYou have great colleagues. I wasn’t comparing frame of mind of my colleagues and LLMs, which is a loaded notion anyway, but now that you mention it…
- fallingbananna 1mo agoI don't think either one was better or worse than the other. Underdocumented, underexplained and sometimes out of date... or overly verbose, repetitive, information sparse, and sometimes halucinating. Both are bad and with some effort could be prevented.
- Frieren 1mo ago> ... and autistic obsession with detail ... Why do people glorify autism? I have seen this mostly on CEOs that want workers that are hyper-focused, intelligent and do not complain. The ideal employee from which extract value and a minimum cost. I have worked with autistic people (diagnosed ones). And it is a struggle. One of them could be the nicest most reasonable person one minute and then get a trigger and become obtuse and irrational while making the rest of the team suffer thru all kinds of complains. Meetings would need to be adjourned and time was lost. > The cynic in me bemoans that we brought this upon ourselves, in more than one way. I enjoy working with other employees and people need human contact to become fully self-actualized. Isolating people to maximize productivity misses the point and brings no more productivity and just avoids fixing any real existing problems.
- dsign 1mo ago> > The cynic in me bemoans that we brought this upon ourselves, in more than one way. > I enjoy working with other employees and people need human contact to become fully self-actualized. Isolating people to maximize productivity misses the point and brings no more productivity and just avoids fixing any real existing problems. While I share the feeling and the posture, I haven't managed yet to use them for better documentation. In fact, for me enjoying human contact takes precedence to pressing people--however politely--into writing better docs, specially now that we have LLMs. The skill of writing should be taught and nurtured in school, and if you made it to the workplace without it, then maybe it's too late and you are better off using an LLM to assist you. Which is exactly what I bemoan.