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> AI is a tool. It outputs things only when asked to. This is not entirely accurate if we consider agentic loops. > Asking it requires skill. Considering the

> AI is a tool. It outputs things only when asked to. This is not entirely accurate if we consider agentic loops. > Asking it requires skill. Considering the realm of writing a blog post instead of programming, what is the skill? I suspect there is extremely little. But I could be wrong, tell me what skill you think went into this. > and give me any LLM and I couldn’t have written this piece. Prompt your LLM of choice to generate 100 articles about different aspects of joining a new role, then you won’t need to provide the insights into the specific situations the author described. All you need to do is pay for the tokens. > Does the conceit come from the idea of “some LLM wrote this, so anyone could”? Yes. > Well, you didn’t. Do you know that? What’s stopping someone from asking an LLM to generate an entire HN front page worth of articles, and reading that list instead of HN? This really is a problem with the health of the site in my opinion. If there are a flood of AI generated articles in the top spot, the value proposition of HN as a site is diminished.

tuckerwales 1mo ago
Author here: I dictated this article into my phone and got a model to transcribe and clean up / reword. I'd argue that counts as using AI as a tool for conveying my original thoughts.
- scared_together 1mo ago
  Hey, thanks for taking the time to respond to feedback. I believe there is a societal problem here, not specific to your particular actions. The expectation that communications should be “cleaned up” and “professional” in the first place comes from a bygone era. In the 2010s and earlier removing all typos, fixing wording, formatting the text and adding images were all signals that someone put extra care into sending their message. But in the present that just indicates use of AI. You mentioned in another comment that your hand-drawn images would be “far worse”. Leaving aside whether any images were needed at all, a hand-drawn scribble in the 2010s might be unprofessional but in the present day there’s an AI generated image on every visible surface. A hand-drawn image, even a bad one, would actually make you stand out. Even if you want to present the cleaned up version, you could also provide the original audio.
  - tuckerwales 1mo ago
    Appreciate the feedback and I don't necessarily disagree with your points - the societal argument is an interesting one. I do think it's interesting that some people are immediately turned off of something because of the whiff of AI even if they like the actual idea or content. Will likely experiment with different ways of writing in the future!
    - trueno 1mo ago
      broadly speaking AI has shown itself to be unreliable in a lot of domains so even if its strongest feature is in fact language, it still carries a readers predisposed experiences with the tech. That is just one problem. You also have to contend with the onslaught of AI generated content that is being used in deliberately fake articles, online personas and the mountains and mountains of things people and entities are trying to push to make a buck. Scams, misinformation, state-sponsored propaganda, a lot of things that are arguably bad for society. So if you consider that, you must also accept that you are making a choice to use a linguistic style that is used by many websites that are vectors that do harm or deliberately mislead (which also does harm). Even if the ideas are of your own merit, you can't expect readers to always do the literary surgery it will take to identify that.That's extra investigative work and assessment that was never a part of anyones reportoire before all this took off. But at this point i don't think you should be surprised that AI writing isn't met with open arms, AI writing has become a pain point for a lot of people in their personal lives and their work lives, a lot of organizations are wounding themselves as people throw their ideas around curated in AI and everyone's eyes are glazing over. It's become synonymous with "this guy does not understand the claude proposal he just sent me". And the choice is yours if you still want to use it knowing that, I just don't think you should be surprised if it doesn't get the reception you hoped for. Plus, you should lean into whatever your monologue is to write. Even if you're afraid it's not pro enough, like. That's writing. It's a journey it has crossover with your ability to communicate it defines you as a person. Keep sharpening that tool and you have untold ways to convey ideas exactly the way you want people to experience them for the first time.

tuckerwales 1mo ago

Author here: I dictated this article into my phone and got a model to transcribe and clean up / reword. I'd argue that counts as using AI as a tool for conveying my original thoughts.

scared_together 1mo ago
Hey, thanks for taking the time to respond to feedback. I believe there is a societal problem here, not specific to your particular actions. The expectation that communications should be “cleaned up” and “professional” in the first place comes from a bygone era. In the 2010s and earlier removing all typos, fixing wording, formatting the text and adding images were all signals that someone put extra care into sending their message. But in the present that just indicates use of AI. You mentioned in another comment that your hand-drawn images would be “far worse”. Leaving aside whether any images were needed at all, a hand-drawn scribble in the 2010s might be unprofessional but in the present day there’s an AI generated image on every visible surface. A hand-drawn image, even a bad one, would actually make you stand out. Even if you want to present the cleaned up version, you could also provide the original audio.
- tuckerwales 1mo ago
  Appreciate the feedback and I don't necessarily disagree with your points - the societal argument is an interesting one. I do think it's interesting that some people are immediately turned off of something because of the whiff of AI even if they like the actual idea or content. Will likely experiment with different ways of writing in the future!
  - trueno 1mo ago
    broadly speaking AI has shown itself to be unreliable in a lot of domains so even if its strongest feature is in fact language, it still carries a readers predisposed experiences with the tech. That is just one problem. You also have to contend with the onslaught of AI generated content that is being used in deliberately fake articles, online personas and the mountains and mountains of things people and entities are trying to push to make a buck. Scams, misinformation, state-sponsored propaganda, a lot of things that are arguably bad for society. So if you consider that, you must also accept that you are making a choice to use a linguistic style that is used by many websites that are vectors that do harm or deliberately mislead (which also does harm). Even if the ideas are of your own merit, you can't expect readers to always do the literary surgery it will take to identify that.That's extra investigative work and assessment that was never a part of anyones reportoire before all this took off. But at this point i don't think you should be surprised that AI writing isn't met with open arms, AI writing has become a pain point for a lot of people in their personal lives and their work lives, a lot of organizations are wounding themselves as people throw their ideas around curated in AI and everyone's eyes are glazing over. It's become synonymous with "this guy does not understand the claude proposal he just sent me". And the choice is yours if you still want to use it knowing that, I just don't think you should be surprised if it doesn't get the reception you hoped for. Plus, you should lean into whatever your monologue is to write. Even if you're afraid it's not pro enough, like. That's writing. It's a journey it has crossover with your ability to communicate it defines you as a person. Keep sharpening that tool and you have untold ways to convey ideas exactly the way you want people to experience them for the first time.