If you couldn't bother to read it, why should I? Not anti-AI. Pro-giving-a-damn.

111 points•rfonseca•5 days ago•113 comments•

113 comments

tptacek5 days ago
While I agree with the sentiment, this:

If you couldn't bother to read it, why should I?

doesn't follow. You don't know that they didn't read it! Only that they didn't write it. If the point of things like this is to be careful, then be careful.

slongfield5 days ago
I like Oxide's version of this: https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0576#_llms_as_writers

The old social contract was that the writer had done more work than they were asking of the reader, but this is torn to shreds with LLM-generated text.

sieve5 days ago
> The old social contract was that the writer had done more work than they were asking of the reader, but this is torn to shreds with LLM-generated text.

The problem is that your biases kick in long before you read the stuff. And I do not see a solution for this.

I write my devlog by hand and then run it through an LLM for a quick sanity check. Grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in stuff you publish in this age of AI is lazy. But I don't do it when I comment on HN/Reddit etc because this is stream-of-consciousness stuff and using AI actively interferes with my thought process.

My code is almost entirely written by LLMs today, but no one can judge how much time I spend on it unless they actively follow my comments on WA, Reddit, HN, my devlog and other places. All they would see is a repo with commits done in the space of a day with nice multi-para commit messages.

This is because I get an LLM to rewrite the entire commit tree once I stabilize a project and have it reproduce the final state in a sequential manner with bite-sized commits. My own development process involves 3-5 word opaque commit messages and a lot of squashing/force pushes: impenetrable/cryptic for anyone other than myself.

There is also the problem with pushing people --- for whom English is a second/third language --- out of entire conversations. Last year, I was talking (on Reddit) to someone from South America who was using LLMs to write in English and a few people were so dismissive of the messages.

I see this as an unstated case of preening.

For better or for worse, the world now communicates in English. You cannot shut people out --- because LLM --- when you yourself would not take the time to read someone if they wrote in Spanish or Russian or Japanese (or the ~25 commonly used languages from my own country).

oejgirjdiejfiej5 days ago
That is entirely invalid considering the existence of ghost writers and such.

No one reads a piece of text BECAUSE the writer had more work writing it than the writer will have reading it (this could end up not being true regardless of AI either way).

The “old social contract” is that readers trust the writers had something to say, and said it. The inner workings have always been irrelevant.

Trouble with genText is that it’s easy for your point to get lost in the narrative exactly because you didn’t write it—it’s like when you know something but can’t put it into words. Your own voice can get lost and so does the appeal to the readers. Nothing to do with effort, entirely to do with the content itself.

I don’t want to read your genAI text because I don’t trust that you managed to get your point across in prose, but I don’t mind reading an LLM’s output because I just wanted a piece of information.

The old social contract was between two humans. Effort was a consequence, not the target.

dozerly5 days ago
From my experience, they likely read 30% of it, convinced themselves that it was good enough and they thought about all of it, then shared it.
Analemma_5 days ago
To be honest I don't particularly feel the need to give the benefit of the doubt to people who dump 10 paragraphs of AI on me. If they want to give a thorough explanation of it to prove they really understand it, that's fine and I can update on the new evidence, but I'm OK with my default baseline assumption being they didn't read it so I don't need to either.
shetritr5 days ago
the code version of this is worse. an agent written PR looks exactly like one the author read carefully. only test I've found is to ask about one specific hunk, "why this and not X". you get a real answer =in ten seconds or you don't.
forrestthewoods5 days ago
Strongly disagree with your sentiment.

> You don't know that they didn't read it!

If someone sends me AI slop to read then I am going to assume and behave as if they didn’t read it until proven otherwise.

It is the responsibility of the sender to proactively say “I read this and stand by it as at least mostly correct and reasonable”.

They are also free to say “AI slop have not yet proof read”. Then I have an informed choice.

clickypen5 days ago
people who are so unskilled in writing even a paragraph and need to have it generated for them are usually not skilled enough to notice the extremely rote, trite cliches that LLMs abuse over and over again, that make it glaringly obvious it's slop.

the the short quippy triplicate comparisons, the inability to contradict itself or reference itself, it's a stink you can pick up immediately and if I see it, it tells me you either can't tell, or didn't read it.

chiatruntime5 days ago
Ironic that this site is AI-generated
xmprt5 days ago
Not really ironic. They even say it here:

> Not anti-AI. Pro-giving-a-damn.

AI isn't the problem. The problem is that people are sending text without proof reading.

4d4m5 days ago
Also applying several refinements for brevity!!
chinathrow5 days ago
Wouldn't hypocrite be more suitable?
bmacho5 days ago
The first comment with "ai;dr", according to You were the first one on HN! https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=5&prefix=true&que... is by user 'madcaptenor' from 11 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45722069#45725169
matheusmoreira5 days ago
How many times have people written this exact same rant now? This is honestly getting more annoying than the AI generated content.
satvikpendem5 days ago
Yeah how many times have we seen this sort of thing on HN now? We get it, people hate AI writing. But screeds like this can be even more annoying as it's pure clickbait for the HN crowd as every time these sorts of posts rocket to #1 on the homepage just like this one is now. HNers say they don't like algorithmic feeds but they sure fall for the same sort of thing they decry others for falling for.
AaronAPU5 days ago
It’s Trump all over again
user439285 days ago
On a more recent note, today I'm really fed up with Opus 5.5.

Yes, it's the best model right now if you want cheaper than Astra, but they increased the verbosity again!

It just keeps dumping whole novels on me. Its writing might be an improvement over the ludicrous Opus 5 speak, but much of the grating way of speaking is still there.

It's been three days since Tuesday and I'm already tired of Opus 5.5.

FearNotDaniel5 days ago
Hard disagree, I’m finding Opus 5.5 so much more pleasant to work with in comparison to its predecessor. Much less of the invented jargon that I got from the last version, or Fable 5.1. Still a bit wordy, sure, but you can dial that down in the settings. I’m wondering what I’m doing differently from you, or is it just a Geschmacksache?
doginasuit5 days ago
It is hard to know what is getting more tiresome, AI writing or complaining about AI writing. We get it, we feel the same way.
Avicebron5 days ago
Part of not allowing it to become normalized is complaining about it..
doginasuit5 days ago
> Part of not allowing it to become normalized is complaining about it.

This seems like a fantasy to me, maybe you can offer an example where it played out like that for something that had a wide appeal or value to a lot of people. Ignoring the people complaining seems just as likely to be positive reinforcement.

blitzar5 days ago
Normalising complaining about a thing is the first step to normalising that thing.
bmoathn5 days ago
IMO I'd rather have fewer enshittified unusable websites so filled with ads I can't actually read anything than some awkwardly written paragraphs that I can skim/move on. I'd rather the pitchforks have been pointed at ad revenue toxicity the past decade than the AI stuff being the focal. Just my opinion.

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