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I think most developers and most dev work is now in the field of websites, apps, and other stuff that is by nature connected to the internet, and has some relat

I think most developers and most dev work is now in the field of websites, apps, and other stuff that is by nature connected to the internet, and has some relatively monolithic backend that has not been built with "blast doors" or other internal safeguards. I guess it will take considerable time until most software is in a state where the impact of AI changes can be reliably estimated without looking at the changes themselves, and some patterns for how to achieve this probably still need to be discovered. > maybe in the future we need to all be more concious about leaving LLM-tells out of our writing. I expect the gruesome writing style of LLMs to be fixed relatively soon, seeing how it can already be prevented with just a few lines of stylistic instructions. I just wonder: how long will it take us then, after the fix, to not be thrown off every time we see some unnecessary catchy or contrastive phrasing? Being traumatized by poor writing was not on my bingo card for 21st century technological progress ...

beecasthurlbow 27d ago
> I expect the gruesome writing style of LLMs to be fixed relatively soon, seeing how it can already be prevented with just a few lines of stylistic instructions What instructions do you use to prevent the gruesome writing style? I have… not found this to be the case.
- jaynetics 27d ago
  Currently I append the snippet below to prompts where I care about the resulting text. Just putting it in the context up front isn't as effective, and I assume if the overall prompt is large, or the context window is full, it will also be less effective. > Use plain, clear, everyday language with a linear deductive flow; avoid hyperbole, juxtapositions, metaphors, analogies, punchlines.
  - beecasthurlbow 26d ago
    I’ll try it thanks! I just got good mileage out of “don’t use ‘X, never Y’ format” on a document too, but I think linear deductive flow Covers it
lelanthran 27d ago
> I expect the gruesome writing style of LLMs to be fixed relatively soon, seeing how it can already be prevented with just a few lines of stylistic instructions. I have not found this to be the case even with SOTA models as recently as last month. It holds for a short while into the content but reverts very quickly to its default style. The default style is so heavily embedded in the weights I don't think simply adding prompts will help.
- jaynetics 27d ago
  > It holds for a short while into the content but reverts very quickly to its default style. You can always make it do a second pass, and if that isn't enough, even let it fix each generated text block individually.

beecasthurlbow 27d ago

> I expect the gruesome writing style of LLMs to be fixed relatively soon, seeing how it can already be prevented with just a few lines of stylistic instructions What instructions do you use to prevent the gruesome writing style? I have… not found this to be the case.

jaynetics 27d ago
Currently I append the snippet below to prompts where I care about the resulting text. Just putting it in the context up front isn't as effective, and I assume if the overall prompt is large, or the context window is full, it will also be less effective. > Use plain, clear, everyday language with a linear deductive flow; avoid hyperbole, juxtapositions, metaphors, analogies, punchlines.
- beecasthurlbow 26d ago
  I’ll try it thanks! I just got good mileage out of “don’t use ‘X, never Y’ format” on a document too, but I think linear deductive flow Covers it

lelanthran 27d ago

> I expect the gruesome writing style of LLMs to be fixed relatively soon, seeing how it can already be prevented with just a few lines of stylistic instructions. I have not found this to be the case even with SOTA models as recently as last month. It holds for a short while into the content but reverts very quickly to its default style. The default style is so heavily embedded in the weights I don't think simply adding prompts will help.

jaynetics 27d ago
> It holds for a short while into the content but reverts very quickly to its default style. You can always make it do a second pass, and if that isn't enough, even let it fix each generated text block individually.