4 ms·

hmm, assuming that this article is part written by claude and part human-written, can anyone help me find a rule of thumb for "how to know if the article is wor

hmm, assuming that this article is part written by claude and part human-written, can anyone help me find a rule of thumb for "how to know if the article is worth reading"? Because on the one hand, the prose and the presentation is painful (narrating irrelevant points, nonlinear X-axes, ambiguous chart labels, etc etc), But on the other hand, the result that I'm assuming the author means to communicate ("on these evals, generation quality seems fairly good") sounds worthwhile to share? Because I really struggle with this question at the moment. Am I allowed to draw an adverse inference that "if the writeup presents irrelevant text side by side with the data, then this may be a sign that the author does not understand the task that they are attempting to write up"?

clircle 24d ago
I think the advice is the same regardless of AI use: read articles written by authors that have a history of high quality writing.
cogman10 24d ago
IMO, whether or not an LLM was used in the writing process doesn't really matter and I think it's a bit annoying that articles are being dismissed out of hand because of that. The line is "Is this an interesting and accurate article that concisely makes it's case". LLMs love to burn paragraphs writing about nothing which is why it's generally poor writing. Humans can do the same thing if they are trying to make very little information feel more substantial. I say, stop trying to determine if an LLM was used and start judging based on your subjective measure that you'd have used before LLMs became widespread.
- JSR_FDED 24d ago
  Except that wasting the reader’s time became a lot easier with LLMs.
  - cogman10 24d ago
    Yes, LLMs make it a lot easier to produce a lot more garbage. That's not an exception to my point. If something is well written then it doesn't waste the reader's time.
- dofm 24d ago
  My main problem — which I am sure being middle-aged compounds — is that I struggle to retain information that an LLM has written or produced. I cannot explain why but it is a consistent problem. In a week’s time I might remember the substance of your comment and some of its shape as a matter of course. Nothing LLM-written that I see today will stick, no matter how curated it was.
  - cogman10 24d ago
    Perhaps it's just a bias? You are already negatively biased against LLM writing so you disregard stuff you read when you suspect it's an LLM. This could also be a selection bias. It may be that you generally struggled to retain information but you are more aware of it when LLMs are involved.
    - dofm 24d ago
      I don't think so, no, because it extends to LLM-generated text I want to recall. I use LLMs to generate starter/tutorial material. I may hate the way Claude writes but I absolutely don't hate the way Gemma 4 writes. But I have to continuously consult it in a way that I do not with human-written text, which gets its message across in a more persistent way I find less troubling. (This non-memorability extends to AI images and video.) You are right that there are some confounding factors in my life but while I was worried about middle age affecting recall, I find actually I am still remembering stuff humans wrote pretty much fine. ETA: there is one thing that I have noticed that does affect recall that is specific to LLMs: watching text roll out word-by-word in LLM chat, I think, damages recall. It's engaging the wrong kind of memory and focus. So I now let it generate and I'm trying to find decent ways to format it e.g. as PDF, to give it the best chance. This could be generational; there were many studies twenty years ago that suggest that people a decade or so younger than me who grew up with full colour books and magazines and multimedia can read less-linear text layouts more comfortably, for example, so it's not out of the question that there's something generational going on here too.
  - wiml 24d ago
    This is a complaint I hear others voice and one I have myself. I think it comes down to the text being poorly written. Sure, LLMs are good at a lot of the surface indicators of good writing: they have a wide vocabulary, they use grammatical sentences, they break up the text into paragraphs, sections, and lists. But they're terrible at organizing the text and marshalling a concept to get it across to a specific audience. The section and paragraph breaks are meaningless, the metaphors are unenlightening, the rhythm is exhaustingly uniform. Pre-LLM, you'd find this kind of text in marketing materials, corporate PR, and heavily padded sophomore essays.
- Farmadupe 24d ago
  (If it helps, I ask my own question of myself too -- I mostly don't write code by hand any more as I find that an LLM writes it faster and with less bugs -- Is that therefore proof that my time was never worth my paycheck? I hope not but at the same time I would actually be proud if I had got away with being an accidental charlatan/fraudster at my employer's expense during my entire career) ----- Similarly, if what I said really is true, I would be implying that LLMs are charlatan/fraudster detectors (to some statistical level). And I refuse on principle to believe that that is actually the case.
- lowbloodsugar 24d ago
  Sure, but if you're going to publish it, at least run it through an edit prompt and tell it to remove clickbait "Its not X, its Y" rubbish. Like literally calling examples clickbait in the prompt has given me better results. Interestingly, I have a lot less trouble with the first draft with Qwen than with Opus.
- breezybottom 24d ago
  It's not nearly as annoying as being tricked into reading them.
JSR_FDED 24d ago
You don’t need anyone’s permission. You have only so much attention, why spend it wading through slop?
stared 24d ago
I wrote this blog post myself, with AI for proofreading (typos and grammar, but not style). There were a few singular sentences for which I had a writer's block, but not much besides that. So, if there are irrelevant remarks, these are mine. :) Charts are vibe-coded - but it took quite a bit of hand-holding to get something decent. And the logarithmic scale for model size is my conscious choice (against Claude's initial ideas).
- Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 23d ago
  Hi, If you ever get to writing a blog post about kv cache quantisation, i'm interested in quantising K differently than V
  - stared 23d ago
    If you like, you can run these tests yourself as well. It is ~$500 per a single combination, and assuming no failed runs.
    - Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 20d ago
      I don't have anywhere near that kind of money to spend. Sorry.
vardalab 24d ago
Just ask your freaking agent to read it for you and extract the information. That's what it's all about. Why would I be reading these articles other than information?
- kennywinker 24d ago
  Claude, read Love in the Time of Cholera for me and summarize the information contained. You are an expert book reader and understander. Make no mistakes.
  - nhecker 24d ago
    I normally don't appreciate snarky comments on HN, me being but a simple curmudgeon wanting pure information and the occasional opinion. but this one actually makes a good point, even if it's not stated explicitly. Reading this book is a wonderful experience because of the way it's written. Reading the plot summary (from an AI or otherwise) yields nothing but the dry husk of that experience.
    - nottorp 24d ago
      Well, sadly it's off topic on HN where everyone seems to only read non fiction. Or they don't admit to reading fiction...

clircle 24d ago

I think the advice is the same regardless of AI use: read articles written by authors that have a history of high quality writing.

cogman10 24d ago

IMO, whether or not an LLM was used in the writing process doesn't really matter and I think it's a bit annoying that articles are being dismissed out of hand because of that. The line is "Is this an interesting and accurate article that concisely makes it's case". LLMs love to burn paragraphs writing about nothing which is why it's generally poor writing. Humans can do the same thing if they are trying to make very little information feel more substantial. I say, stop trying to determine if an LLM was used and start judging based on your subjective measure that you'd have used before LLMs became widespread.

JSR_FDED 24d ago
Except that wasting the reader’s time became a lot easier with LLMs.
- cogman10 24d ago
  Yes, LLMs make it a lot easier to produce a lot more garbage. That's not an exception to my point. If something is well written then it doesn't waste the reader's time.
dofm 24d ago
My main problem — which I am sure being middle-aged compounds — is that I struggle to retain information that an LLM has written or produced. I cannot explain why but it is a consistent problem. In a week’s time I might remember the substance of your comment and some of its shape as a matter of course. Nothing LLM-written that I see today will stick, no matter how curated it was.
- cogman10 24d ago
  Perhaps it's just a bias? You are already negatively biased against LLM writing so you disregard stuff you read when you suspect it's an LLM. This could also be a selection bias. It may be that you generally struggled to retain information but you are more aware of it when LLMs are involved.
  - dofm 24d ago
    I don't think so, no, because it extends to LLM-generated text I want to recall. I use LLMs to generate starter/tutorial material. I may hate the way Claude writes but I absolutely don't hate the way Gemma 4 writes. But I have to continuously consult it in a way that I do not with human-written text, which gets its message across in a more persistent way I find less troubling. (This non-memorability extends to AI images and video.) You are right that there are some confounding factors in my life but while I was worried about middle age affecting recall, I find actually I am still remembering stuff humans wrote pretty much fine. ETA: there is one thing that I have noticed that does affect recall that is specific to LLMs: watching text roll out word-by-word in LLM chat, I think, damages recall. It's engaging the wrong kind of memory and focus. So I now let it generate and I'm trying to find decent ways to format it e.g. as PDF, to give it the best chance. This could be generational; there were many studies twenty years ago that suggest that people a decade or so younger than me who grew up with full colour books and magazines and multimedia can read less-linear text layouts more comfortably, for example, so it's not out of the question that there's something generational going on here too.
- wiml 24d ago
  This is a complaint I hear others voice and one I have myself. I think it comes down to the text being poorly written. Sure, LLMs are good at a lot of the surface indicators of good writing: they have a wide vocabulary, they use grammatical sentences, they break up the text into paragraphs, sections, and lists. But they're terrible at organizing the text and marshalling a concept to get it across to a specific audience. The section and paragraph breaks are meaningless, the metaphors are unenlightening, the rhythm is exhaustingly uniform. Pre-LLM, you'd find this kind of text in marketing materials, corporate PR, and heavily padded sophomore essays.
Farmadupe 24d ago
(If it helps, I ask my own question of myself too -- I mostly don't write code by hand any more as I find that an LLM writes it faster and with less bugs -- Is that therefore proof that my time was never worth my paycheck? I hope not but at the same time I would actually be proud if I had got away with being an accidental charlatan/fraudster at my employer's expense during my entire career) ----- Similarly, if what I said really is true, I would be implying that LLMs are charlatan/fraudster detectors (to some statistical level). And I refuse on principle to believe that that is actually the case.
lowbloodsugar 24d ago
Sure, but if you're going to publish it, at least run it through an edit prompt and tell it to remove clickbait "Its not X, its Y" rubbish. Like literally calling examples clickbait in the prompt has given me better results. Interestingly, I have a lot less trouble with the first draft with Qwen than with Opus.
breezybottom 24d ago
It's not nearly as annoying as being tricked into reading them.

JSR_FDED 24d ago

You don’t need anyone’s permission. You have only so much attention, why spend it wading through slop?

stared 24d ago

I wrote this blog post myself, with AI for proofreading (typos and grammar, but not style). There were a few singular sentences for which I had a writer's block, but not much besides that. So, if there are irrelevant remarks, these are mine. :) Charts are vibe-coded - but it took quite a bit of hand-holding to get something decent. And the logarithmic scale for model size is my conscious choice (against Claude's initial ideas).

Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 23d ago
Hi, If you ever get to writing a blog post about kv cache quantisation, i'm interested in quantising K differently than V
- stared 23d ago
  If you like, you can run these tests yourself as well. It is ~$500 per a single combination, and assuming no failed runs.
  - Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 20d ago
    I don't have anywhere near that kind of money to spend. Sorry.

vardalab 24d ago

Just ask your freaking agent to read it for you and extract the information. That's what it's all about. Why would I be reading these articles other than information?

kennywinker 24d ago
Claude, read Love in the Time of Cholera for me and summarize the information contained. You are an expert book reader and understander. Make no mistakes.
- nhecker 24d ago
  I normally don't appreciate snarky comments on HN, me being but a simple curmudgeon wanting pure information and the occasional opinion. but this one actually makes a good point, even if it's not stated explicitly. Reading this book is a wonderful experience because of the way it's written. Reading the plot summary (from an AI or otherwise) yields nothing but the dry husk of that experience.
  - nottorp 24d ago
    Well, sadly it's off topic on HN where everyone seems to only read non fiction. Or they don't admit to reading fiction...