3 ms·

LLMs write better than most journalists. It also writes better than majority people in the world when it comes to English as majority are really bad in writing.

LLMs write better than most journalists. It also writes better than majority people in the world when it comes to English as majority are really bad in writing. And of course, LLMs write as you prompt. Personally, I'm happy to read broken English from non English people or good English from English people. But I'd rather read LLM writing than read typical long form perfect English journalist crap.

wavemode 1mo ago
> LLMs write better than most journalists In my personal experience I strongly disagree. Curious what publications you read wherein this is the case.
- anon84873628 1mo ago
  I suspect the commenter prefers the concise, factual summary of an LLM. It is true that modern journalism on the web is trying to get ad impressions. After all, this is how we ended up with clickbait. Sure you still have the Economist and Atlantic (which aren't beyond criticism), but your local county paper is an absolute mess. The content is stretched, meandering, and designed to keep you scrolling through more impressions.
  - zahlman 1mo ago
    > concise, factual summary of an LLM. Pardon; the what?
jampekka 1mo ago
> LLMs write better than most journalists. I used to think this, but now that I've been trying to use them to help with writing, it turns out they are not necessarily that great on the deeper level. The grammar and the surface style are impeccable, but they often struggle with continuity and carrying on a point or an argument.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
- CrimsonRain 1mo ago
  With current LLMs, the continuity/carrying/context management is _your_ task. When AGI is achieved etc...
- riskable 1mo ago
  I've come to trust their grammar corrections implicitly. So much that I've setup a "Fix Grammar" command with Obsidian Copilot that I'll just let it run on a whole chapter (YOLO mode): Proofread the following text for grammar, punctuation, and typos while strictly preserving the author's voice, pacing, and intentional stylistic choices (such as sentence fragments or character dialogue quirks). Rules: - Correct objective spelling errors, misused words, and unintended punctuation mistakes. - Smooth out unintentional syntactic snags without homogenizing unique phrasing. - Retain all Markdown formatting. - Return ONLY the corrected text with no intro, summary, or explanations. Text to edit: {selection} About a year ago, all three big AI vendors could end up with strange "corrections" that would throw you off, but not anymore. As far as I'm concerned, they've solved "the grammar checking problem." The complexity in this command is there for phi4:14b and qwen3:14b which I run locally via ollama. If the text doesn't have any Obsidian callouts or similar, fancy stuff I just use either of those and they do a fantastic job in seconds. For Big AI (e.g. Gemini, GPT-whatevs, Claude) you can literally just tell it, "fix the grammar." No need for the lengthy command. NOTE: I am decent with English grammar so most of what needs fixing is typos I didn't spot or misplaced commas and periods inside/outside of quotes (I always screw that up without thinking—even though I know the rules! LOL). Occasionally, Big AI (Gemini, specifically) have disagreements about whether a comma is necessary in a particular spot but it's always of no real consequence.
  - zahlman 1mo ago
    > About a year ago, all three big AI vendors could end up with strange "corrections" that would throw you off, but not anymore. Without a history of diffs created by this method, I don't believe you. > I am decent with English grammar so most of what needs fixing is typos I didn't spot or misplaced commas and periods inside/outside of quotes (I always screw that up without thinking—even though I know the rules! LOL). The rules there vary by style guide and are not objective. LLMs seem like massive overkill for something the red and green squiggles can already accomplish.
anon84873628 1mo ago
I would almost never transmit LLM output without a decent amount of editing. But I also don't understand people who paint it as this horrible offensive unreadable slop. Calling it better than most journalists is extreme (and probably the reason for down votes), but it must certainly be better than the average person. We're hearing this criticism from the highly educated professional class people who bother to have their own blog or otherwise spend their time talking about technology online. I mean come on. To most people, the LLM must feel incredibly empowering, like us wearing a mecha suit. Would we always show restraint and only apply our newfound enhanced physical strength in carefully considered situations?
- antonvs 1mo ago
  > But I also don't understand people who paint it as this horrible offensive unreadable slop. When a piece of writing is full of LLM tells, I find it as offensive as any formulaic writing, except that the LLM style has quickly become pervasive, much more so than any other type of formulaic writing. I’m not reacting out of some general dislike of LLMs - I use them daily. I’m reacting because I don’t like terrible writing.
  - qlte 1mo ago
    Well said. When I realize I've been reading LLM filler and leave the page it's the same reaction I would have pre-2021 thinking I found a good source for something and realizing I'm actually reading blogspam. The difference being this variant of blogspam is produced with basically zero cost and thus the infection has spread far beyond SEO into every UI surface with textbox. Plus there are now passionate defenders who insist finding their blogspam unpleasant to read is disrespectful or anti-progress somehow.
LtWorf 1mo ago
They are worse than most people at communicating ideas.
kjs3 1mo ago
[flagged]
zahlman 1mo ago
> But I'd rather read LLM writing than read typical long form perfect English journalist crap. The problem is precisely that LLM writing is that exact thing (at least by default), but even more so. Longer-form, more "perfect" in some technical sense, and yet crappier.
- CrimsonRain 1mo ago
  not all of them. and you can always just ask to be concise.

wavemode 1mo ago

> LLMs write better than most journalists In my personal experience I strongly disagree. Curious what publications you read wherein this is the case.

anon84873628 1mo ago
I suspect the commenter prefers the concise, factual summary of an LLM. It is true that modern journalism on the web is trying to get ad impressions. After all, this is how we ended up with clickbait. Sure you still have the Economist and Atlantic (which aren't beyond criticism), but your local county paper is an absolute mess. The content is stretched, meandering, and designed to keep you scrolling through more impressions.
- zahlman 1mo ago
  > concise, factual summary of an LLM. Pardon; the what?

jampekka 1mo ago

> LLMs write better than most journalists. I used to think this, but now that I've been trying to use them to help with writing, it turns out they are not necessarily that great on the deeper level. The grammar and the surface style are impeccable, but they often struggle with continuity and carrying on a point or an argument.

deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
CrimsonRain 1mo ago
With current LLMs, the continuity/carrying/context management is _your_ task. When AGI is achieved etc...
riskable 1mo ago
I've come to trust their grammar corrections implicitly. So much that I've setup a "Fix Grammar" command with Obsidian Copilot that I'll just let it run on a whole chapter (YOLO mode): Proofread the following text for grammar, punctuation, and typos while strictly preserving the author's voice, pacing, and intentional stylistic choices (such as sentence fragments or character dialogue quirks). Rules: - Correct objective spelling errors, misused words, and unintended punctuation mistakes. - Smooth out unintentional syntactic snags without homogenizing unique phrasing. - Retain all Markdown formatting. - Return ONLY the corrected text with no intro, summary, or explanations. Text to edit: {selection} About a year ago, all three big AI vendors could end up with strange "corrections" that would throw you off, but not anymore. As far as I'm concerned, they've solved "the grammar checking problem." The complexity in this command is there for phi4:14b and qwen3:14b which I run locally via ollama. If the text doesn't have any Obsidian callouts or similar, fancy stuff I just use either of those and they do a fantastic job in seconds. For Big AI (e.g. Gemini, GPT-whatevs, Claude) you can literally just tell it, "fix the grammar." No need for the lengthy command. NOTE: I am decent with English grammar so most of what needs fixing is typos I didn't spot or misplaced commas and periods inside/outside of quotes (I always screw that up without thinking—even though I know the rules! LOL). Occasionally, Big AI (Gemini, specifically) have disagreements about whether a comma is necessary in a particular spot but it's always of no real consequence.
- zahlman 1mo ago
  > About a year ago, all three big AI vendors could end up with strange "corrections" that would throw you off, but not anymore. Without a history of diffs created by this method, I don't believe you. > I am decent with English grammar so most of what needs fixing is typos I didn't spot or misplaced commas and periods inside/outside of quotes (I always screw that up without thinking—even though I know the rules! LOL). The rules there vary by style guide and are not objective. LLMs seem like massive overkill for something the red and green squiggles can already accomplish.

anon84873628 1mo ago

I would almost never transmit LLM output without a decent amount of editing. But I also don't understand people who paint it as this horrible offensive unreadable slop. Calling it better than most journalists is extreme (and probably the reason for down votes), but it must certainly be better than the average person. We're hearing this criticism from the highly educated professional class people who bother to have their own blog or otherwise spend their time talking about technology online. I mean come on. To most people, the LLM must feel incredibly empowering, like us wearing a mecha suit. Would we always show restraint and only apply our newfound enhanced physical strength in carefully considered situations?

antonvs 1mo ago
> But I also don't understand people who paint it as this horrible offensive unreadable slop. When a piece of writing is full of LLM tells, I find it as offensive as any formulaic writing, except that the LLM style has quickly become pervasive, much more so than any other type of formulaic writing. I’m not reacting out of some general dislike of LLMs - I use them daily. I’m reacting because I don’t like terrible writing.
- qlte 1mo ago
  Well said. When I realize I've been reading LLM filler and leave the page it's the same reaction I would have pre-2021 thinking I found a good source for something and realizing I'm actually reading blogspam. The difference being this variant of blogspam is produced with basically zero cost and thus the infection has spread far beyond SEO into every UI surface with textbox. Plus there are now passionate defenders who insist finding their blogspam unpleasant to read is disrespectful or anti-progress somehow.

LtWorf 1mo ago

They are worse than most people at communicating ideas.

kjs3 1mo ago

[flagged]

zahlman 1mo ago

> But I'd rather read LLM writing than read typical long form perfect English journalist crap. The problem is precisely that LLM writing is that exact thing (at least by default), but even more so. Longer-form, more "perfect" in some technical sense, and yet crappier.

CrimsonRain 1mo ago
not all of them. and you can always just ask to be concise.