We should be better than genAI. For me, with things like coding and writing, I think I'm better than it. For painting? It wins over me. But I'd never in a million years claim creation of a painting I prompted, even if I went and modified it after. Same with code or writing, for that matter.
For the record, I never use AI in writing. First, it's no fun, and that's really reason enough. It'd be like sending a bot to watch a movie for me. Second, I'm better than it is, and it would just be an exercise in frustration micromanaging its every word. I might as well just type what I want it to say.
And third, most importantly, who would read anything I wrote if they could just generate it themselves? The goal is to be better.
> And third, most importantly, who would read anything I wrote if they could just generate it themselves?
This should be embarrassingly obvious to everyone, but allegedly there are hoards of vibecoders and other slop producers to whom it never occurs (if it's not astroturfers pretending to be that). If prompt slinging is your only expertise, you already are redundant.
Meh. I‘d be happy if my AI built my program just the way that I want it, but it turns out to be a lot of work go get it to do that (Deepseek, Claude might be a bit less involved).
I still have to make a bunch of decisions based on its research, so it still turns out to be hours of work that can go into it.
Granted, I can probably optimize some things by encoding my style preferences. But so far it has been a lot more involved than „make me an app, make no mistakes“.
That‘s why I‘d call it in a large part my work. It‘s my vision, in the same way an architect that has never personally laid a brick can call a building „their work“.
On the other hand, you might be better than AI if given maximal time, attention, and energy.
But the question is how often are you better at all the tasks where you don’t have maximal time, attention, and energy - and it would make no sense to invest it.
It was difficult to finish reading your post after you put the OP down for stating that they believe they're more original and more capable than an LLM. Maybe leave that part out next time, or at least don't lead with it. It does not help your argument the way you think it does.
I wonder why you would mince your words about LLM use at all though. Instead of couching your methods in language like, "I 'built' a program," or, "I've 'crafted' a novel," you ought to just put your money where your mouth is and say, "I used LLMs to make [something]."
If want to be up-front and proud about the fact that you use LLMs in your work, just dot that without indirection or ornamentation. Wear that attitude on your sleeve and let your audience determine if your work is worth their attention.
I think the top reason for most people is so that they're worth hiring. If you offer no more than an AI, what is your value?
Is scotty79 human? Was this written by you? Or are you just an AI? And if you are human and wrote it, why did you do that when an AI could do it better than you? And if an AI could do it better, why even communicate with you? I could just go talk to Claude.
Other reasons might be to push the SOTA past what an genAI can do. Or to produce human work in human society.
Maybe someday we'll be past needing to be hired to eat, and then maybe we just stop worrying and let genAI be better than all of us. But I find that to be undesirable.
> And you are definitely not better than you + AI.
I think this is what I'm saying. If you're not better, you're just in the way. If you're not better, then you < you + AI.
Here's an example: early ChatGPT sucked at remotely complex jq. I wanted a function to do fuzzy comparisons between JSON objects, and it just could not get it right. I didn't speak jq, so it was just me pasting errors and output and cutting code--zero value add.
Eventually I gave up. I then spent 3 hours working on learning jq and and came up with a more robust and capable solution than ChatGPT had been working toward.
Now you're going to correctly say that ChatGPT didn't have enough training data to perform well with this relatively new and relatively infrequently-used language.
But my point is that you need to be better than it so you can do novel things that it can't.
All this assumes, of course, that the AI-bro future of AI doing everything doesn't come to pass. If it does, it'll be global economic collapse and we can just go back to feudalism.
> I no longer say I wrote a program
Other management verbs work well here, I think. "Produced", "oversaw", "managed development of", etc.
> In the end I believe the content is the king.
I think so, too. The question is, do you have anything to offer, or should I just go to a bot?
> Now I just point out behavior that I want to be different and the model figures it out. Often surprisingly quickly.
This seems to have low-to-zero value in the medium- to long-term. Probably some 90% of the population has the ability to sit in their living room and ask a genAI to build things. Why do I need to use your software? If I liked it, I'd just have my AI clone it.
And if everyone can just groom dogs (using this to mean "non-information work"), the value of that goes through the floor, too.
> I see AIs as providing quality (better) and humans as providing flavor
Humans are perhaps better than AI at providing flavor?
> I see myself now way more useful as contributing unique ideas of what could exist and how (on the high level) it could work.
Another example of being better.
> Except perhaps a bit of taste when it comes to directory layout and dependencies selection.
And another.
> I'm sure this comment would be an easier read if the bot read it for you and relied the ideas and information it contains
I'm not sure that's the case, but if it were and that's what I was doing, there'd be no point in human flavor. :(
> This seems to have low-to-zero value in the medium- to long-term.
On one hand, I don't think so. Because idea guys seemed to be doing well even in a world where it's super expensive to convert the idea into anything of value.
On the other regardless of what you do you can't earn money if the customer for whatever you are trying to sell has no money to pay you and that might be the case if a lot of people lose their income stream and nobody replaces it with something else.
> Probably some 90% of the population has the ability to sit in their living room and ask a genAI to build things. Why do I need to use your software? If I liked it, I'd just have my AI clone it.
Yes. And that's the beauty of it. You won't clone my software. Because it's mine. I won't even show it to you, let alone sell it or give it to you. But I'll happily sit in your living room with you to help you build one for yourself. Provided that you'll compensate me for my time and effort. Most software of the future will have userbase of 1. Everybody can exercise, yet people hire trainers. Everyone can live, yet people hire couches for everything imaginable. Can AI be a couch? Some day, but people stubbornly like human touch in that role.
> And if everyone can just groom dogs (using this to mean "non-information work"), the value of that goes through the floor, too.
My point is, jobs can be invented out of thin air if there's money around to spend. And they were. And they will be.
> Humans are perhaps better than AI at providing flavor?
Yes. And it might stay like that for a while longer. Just because we have billions of somewhat unique brains in stock.
>> Except perhaps a bit of taste when it comes to directory layout and dependencies selection.
> And another.
Am I to take pride in my skill of directory naming? Am I to tie my self-worth with that? I don't think that's prudent.
It will go away soon anyways. I'm already learning new worthy dependencies from what AI built for me. And it does quite reasonable directory naming when prompted already.
>> I'm sure this comment would be an easier read if the bot read it for you and relied the ideas and information it contains
> I'm not sure that's the case,
You can try. Don't be afraid to experiment. It might be bad, but you might have ideas how to make it a bit better. You can tell agent your ideas and see how they pan out.
> but if it were and that's what I was doing, there'd be no point in human flavor.
If the human has interesting flavor to provide it tends to show up even in the finished product. Regardless of whether machine that built it was made of people and processes or just weights and loops.
> Because idea guys seemed to be doing well even in a world where it's super expensive to convert the idea into anything of value.
But now we're talking about a world where it's super cheap to do that.
> But I'll happily sit in your living room with you to help you build one for yourself. Provided that you'll compensate me for my time and effort.
I'd pay the market rate, which would be basically zero due to oversupply.
> but people stubbornly like human touch in that role.
A point of view I can definitely relate to. :) "ChatGPT, please summarize the heartfelt message my aging mother sent me."
Students also tell me this. When I discussed the whole idea of AI teacher "avatars" with them, their main feedback was that it was extremely disrespectful to them. They know how to use AI. They came to school to learn more than AI could teach them, from people who are better at teaching than AI is.
Admittedly, genAI is a pretty goddamn good teacher. But the best human teachers are better. And man, I would definitely prefer to read human-produced material, but it's really hard to separate the wheat from the chaff today.
> My point is, jobs can be invented out of thin air if there's money around to spend. And they were. And they will be.
I agree with you, but those jobs don't necessarily have any value if there's an oversupply of workers. And this is especially true for jobs that are easy to learn and perform.
Groundskeeping will pay zero. Food prep will pay zero. Even trades that are more challenging to learn (like electrical or welding) will pay zero when 20% of the population is a welder.
So I have the same question: where is the money going to come from? No money is economic collapse.
> Am I to take pride in my skill of directory naming? Am I to tie my self-worth with that? I don't think that's prudent.
Personally, at this point, my recommendation is that you tie your self-worth (when it comes to monetary production ability) to anything and everything you possibly can. Tie it to anything that gives you any edge whatsoever.
> Don't be afraid to experiment. It might be bad, but you might have ideas how to make it a bit better. You can tell agent your ideas and see how they pan out.
Yeah, I've done a lot of this. I'm impressed at how well it can get nearly up to par, but really unimpressed by how poorly it exceeds it. I mean, it's good. But it's not standout.
But in this case, I don't like how it would strip away the you part of your message. If all I cared about was raw information, I wouldn't even be here now. I'd just have my secretary-bot summarize and write a response. I want this conversation to be with you, human scotty79.
What is your job, out of curiosity, if you're willing to share? And if it's tech, what do you plan to do after that market is gone?
> But now we're talking about a world where it's super cheap to do that.
Yes, so I imagine the value of idea (and being "idea guy") only grows in such world, because now the idea has way higher chance and lower cost of becoming materialized. And unmaterialized ideas are and always were worth zero.
> I'd pay the market rate, which would be basically zero due to oversupply.
That entirely depends on the demand. If someone can afford a fitness coach to help them work on their body, they can afford personal AI jokey to help them work on their own personal web browser or fitness app. It's not that different from how I started my career. There was this newfangled thing called the internet and I bet my future on the belief that people (individuals and small companies) might want to do something with that at some point so I can be there to share what I know thus far.
Every moment when each individual person is pissed at software, in their living room, is your potential business opportunity now. And people are pissed at software a lot.
>> but people stubbornly like human touch in that role.
> A point of view I can definitely relate to. :)
I don't really mind that sentiment. I'm a human so if they are willing to pay extra for a human it might be good for me in whatever context. It also keeps lines to automated checkouts and order kiosks short, which I absolute love.
> Students also tell me this. When I discussed the whole idea of AI teacher "avatars" with them, their main feedback was that it was extremely disrespectful to them.
I think that's fair. They paid (?) good money for a human. Bait and switch is rarely welcomed. But also Khan academy exists and for many people is way more effective. And so AI driven education software is going to be at some point, probably, imho.
> They know how to use AI. They came to school to learn more than AI could teach them, from people who are better at teaching than AI is.
School ultimately rarely is the dream fulfillment. But I imagine paying for school and being put in front of an AI you are perfectly capable of putting yourself in front of feels bad. It's as if the entire curriculum consisted of the address of the public library.
Most teachers don't really know what to do with AI. I think smart students will figure it out first.
> Admittedly, genAI is a pretty goddamn good teacher.
Oh? I don't really track what's the progress in teaching. My own style of learning has always been "pull" based, and "as needed". I would like to create software to teach me German at some relatively close point in the future.
> But the best human teachers are better. And man, I would definitely prefer to read human-produced material, but it's really hard to separate the wheat from the chaff today.
Encountering even a single great teacher is a grat luck and privilege. Not everyone is this lucky.
> those jobs don't necessarily have any value if there's an oversupply of workers.
I don't think jobs are much about value anymore. Bulk of the value in the economy has been created by machines for a long time now. Needs and wants are manufactured by ad industry. Fulfilling them doesn't really involve value. In their own evaluation many people's jobs don't contribute anything of value to society and some believe they actively bring harm.
> So I have the same question: where is the money going to come from? No money is economic collapse.
For me the money is just an accounting system. Money is not a resource. It is a method for keeping track of how much of the future output of human civilization you are entitled to. How it's awarded and deducted is completely arbitrary. We are currently using markets for seeking optimal allocation but we stray far from the markets already because natural attractor for this allocation method is civilizationally unappealing in many ways. And still our tweeks of this allocation method don't make it gravitate to a lot of desirable outcomes. We probably never replace it wholesale but we might be braver with adjustments in the future. Money and value are two different things. How we organize money affects value production of course. But it's never one to one.
> Personally, at this point, my recommendation is that you tie your self-worth (when it comes to monetary production ability) to anything and everything you possibly can. Tie it to anything that gives you any edge whatsoever.
I don't think it's a good idea. Things will progress. The debris you can hold onto are going to get smaller and smaller as they sink. If you keep holding to the last bits that still stick out of the water you will drown. The boat sunk. This time, that the pieces that still float give you, shouldn't be spent for looking for the piece that will sink last or frantically grasping the closest ones. You should be looking around to find something else entirely or at least a piece of boat that maybe is a hefty swim away but at least looks like it might have positive buoyancy, maybe to even keep you afloat till next event or till your natural death. I'm trying to learn to swim even though I know that also won't last.
> I'm impressed at how well it can get nearly up to par, but really unimpressed by how poorly it exceeds it. I mean, it's good. But it's not standout.
Yeah. I haven't fallen in love with the execution too much. AI haven't built me anything of unseen unique perfection. But it's way better than it used to be and I can draw a straight line on a graph in my head.
What I'm absolutely delighted is that it's good enough to explore 100 times more things than were worth exploring a year ago.
I think the space of ideas is severely underexplored. The only engine we have for exploring ideas at scale is capitalism. And its resources are limited and held tightly to the chest. Business basically takes no risks and aims for rent seeking. Most of the breakthroughs of the last centuries came from risks undertaken by the taxpayers funding science. Variety of capitalism's outputs is superficial. You have 1000 products to choose from when you need nothing, but when you actually need a specific product it turns out nobody sells exactly what you need. AI lets me explore the space in between of what capitalism offers. Things that it wouldn't be able to offer. Maybe it's a stupid analogy that just came to my mind but the market offers real numbers and AI suddenly opened the world of irrationals. Sure, most of them are not that interesting, but there's whole infinity of them in between of every two real numbers. There's bound to be something good there, even if there can't be any market for it. And now exploring that space is viably cheap.
> But in this case, I don't like how it would strip away the you part of your message. If all I cared about was raw information, I wouldn't even be here now. I'd just have my secretary-bot summarize and write a response. I want this conversation to be with you, human scotty79.
I'm not gonna kink-shame. ;-) But I don't share that craving. Although I'm always delighted to talk to someone (?) whose intelligence I can recognize.
> What is your job, out of curiosity, if you're willing to share? And if it's tech, what do you plan to do after that market is gone?
Software developer. According to people I know, a good one, although I have my doubts. My biggest strengths were always in the debugging. I didn't really like to build stuff before AI because I always knew that's gonna be a heap of work and I'm lazy. But the debugging could always keep me hooked. My expertise is pretty common. Webapps (although I dabbled in other things). Full-stack. I always was doing everything I needed to do. Now that thing is AI.
As for my plans for the future. Financially I'm set, but if I lose it, I see myself sharing my findings in the domain of AI wrangling for the purposes of irrational seafaring, with people and companies, for money.
I don't like lies. So I won't be optimizing for lies. But I also don't like garbage. So I'll be optimizing for filtering it out. Even if the source of garbage are genuine humans.
I had a suspicion some time ago that this craving for genuine has masochistic foundations. You just provided me with another point in the pointcloud, I'm trying to infer the shape of reality out of.
> Hell I would pay for a tool right now to filter ai slop from the feeds.
Agent can build one for you. Even today. But the first step is to take full control of your feed sources. If you are browsing cookie cutter websites with a cookie cutter browser, it might be hard to do.
You jest, but this is the human condition. People in comfort suffer all the time. It's the basis for the expression "familiarity breeds contempt".
You might have someone who has everything they ever wanted, and yet they will still say, "And yet..."
This is why people react so strongly. They sense that having their every need taken care of is a special type of Hell. There was a episode of the "new" Twilight Zone in the 80s that used this device, I believe.
And the "masochism" is part of that. There is no light without the darkness. People at the equator will never feel the joy of springtime; one must have known the cold of winter in order to do so.
> You jest, but this is the human condition. People in comfort suffer all the time. It's the basis for the expression "familiarity breeds contempt".
Humans are diverse. There are humans that climb tallest mountain for no objective reason, getting frostbite for life and still feeling unfulfilled. And there are humans that happily and contently live their whole life in one house. There's no universal "human condition".
> There is no light without the darkness.
Human narrations are full of false dichotomies. In metaphorical sense light and darkness are nearly completely orthogonal.
History of our species was filled with incredible amounts of suffering. It's normal to have circuits in the brain and associated narratives that embellish, glorify and legitimize suffering.
> People at the equator will never feel the joy of springtime; one must have known the cold of winter in order to do so.
Yeah, you'll never experience the joy of healing if you don't impale yourself on that sharp object.
You don't have to experience everything in life. This also goes for pain induced pleasures. It's perfectly fine to choose not to experience something (when existence awards you the opportunity to pass on it).
This is why people say LLMs are rotting your brain. It’s not currently possible to distinguish LLM content from human content automatically and asking the slop machine to do it won’t achieve anything.
You would know that if you understood the problem domain. That is exactly why it is important to build real knowledge as a human, instead of relying on LLMs to do all your thinking for you. Give it a shot sometime.
Have you tried? Give it your feed. Ask it to pass it through antislop + SLOP_Detector + slop-forensics and whatever else your agent can find for you.
Will it filter out every last bit of AI content? No, but I'm sure it will spare you from more than half.
Will it leave in every last bit of human produced content? No. But the ones it's going to filter out are gonna read like slop to you anyways.
We are living in the real world. There are no perfect solutions for every wish. But a lot can be done towards fullfilling some of their parts. Thanks to agentic coding more than ever.
The difference between telling AI what to make and seeing how it goes, instead of sitting on your hands proclaiming it's impossible to make is really small. Hey, the best thing that could happen, it could confirm what you are already sure of.
> Have you tried? Give it your feed. Ask it to pass it through [...]
I've reworded this a few times but I still can't figure out how to say it gently, so I'm just going to say it. Your lack of knowledge about something - in this case the detection of LLM generated content - is not on the same footing as actually having knowledge about it. In this case I am already familiar enough with the state of the art for content classification to know that LLM detection systems are not reliable enough to apply to a feed.
> The difference between telling AI what to make and seeing how it goes, instead of sitting on your hands proclaiming it's impossible to make is really small.
And both achieve the same result: no usable tool. It's not worth spending the time or money it would take to slop together something that isn't going to do the job.
> Your lack of knowledge about something - in this case the detection of LLM generated content - is not on the same footing as actually having knowledge about it.
I'm not sure why are you saying that. Do I need to be on equal footing to suggest something to you? I'm obviously not on equal footing as a complete ignorant. I never touched the subject because my brain slop filter serves me perfectly well even though it's not 100% accurate.
> And both achieve the same result: no usable tool.
The goal is not to build revolutionary tool that achieves state-of-the-art in slop filtering. The goal is to make your life a bit better by cobbling few things together at near zero cost.
> It's not worth spending the time or money it would take to slop together something that isn't going to do the job.
What money? Have you maxed out your sub for the week?
What time? I do such things while I'm cooking my dinner.
Processing this topic in your head (which you obviously did for quite a while to earn your footing) already costed you more time and at least as much money.
To explain to you that you are wasting your time and that your suggestions on this are not going to move the needle, nor are they particularly valuable.
> I never touched the subject because my brain slop filter serves me perfectly well even though it's not 100% accurate.
The whole idea is to avoid wasting brain power on filtering slop.
> The goal is not to build revolutionary tool. The goal is to make your life a bit better.
And since it isn't possible to build the required tool, wasting time and money trying to get an LLM to do something that it can't will in no way make my life better.
> What money? Have you maxed out your sub for the week?
Are you somehow under the impression that all or even most people pay for LLM subscriptions? I concluded it wasn't worth the cost at all.
> What time? I do such things while I'm cooking my dinner.
You either spend time writing the prompt and checking the result, or you don't. I'm not interested in jiggling an LLM while I'm cooking.
> Processing this topic in your head (which you obviously did for quite a while to earn your footing) already costed you more time and about as much money.
Actually if you have knowledge about the field it doesn't take much time at all to sort things by difficulty and understand what approaches are possible and what are worthless. And I have the advantage of carrying that knowledge forward, which means I don't need to spend time prompting an LLM to learn what I already know.
> The whole idea is to avoid wasting brain power on filtering slop.
Not really different from wasting your muscle power in a gym. My rejections of trash content, by AI or humans are faster than ever.
> And since it isn't possible to build the required tool, wasting time and money trying to get an LLM to do something that it can't will in no way make my life better.
I guess I have zero chance to make you revisit your well informed opinion by doing anything practical. No matter how trivial and effortless.
> Are you somehow under the impression that all or even most people pay for LLM subscriptions? I concluded it wasn't worth the cost at all.
Ah, that explains a lot. Basically all of it.
> You either spend time writing the prompt and checking the result, or you don't. I'm not interested in jiggling an LLM while I'm cooking.
What do you do when you wait for the food to cook? My brains craves novelty and stimulation pretty much constantly. I used to game and read and watch stuff, but AI agentic coding is as fun and those things, possibly more.
If it’s so important to you personally that someone waste time and money trying to make an LLM slop machine shit out something that they can’t, be my guest and go ahead.
> My brains craves novelty and stimulation pretty much constantly.
Your brain is deep fried in dopamine if you’re seriously splitting your time between cooking and prompting. You should take a walk, drop the subscription for a while, get outside and soak up the sun.
I’m worried that you’re already pretty far down the path to psychosis, going by the rest of your responses.
> If it’s so important to you personally that someone waste time and money trying to make an LLM slop machine shit out something that they can’t, be my guest and go ahead.
Today, on nearly daily basis, I'm taking a stab at the things that were impossible until very recently. I already made useful progress on things that used to be impossible for me personally.
Slop detection wasn't my interest because I don't have a problem with it. But it might maybe soon. I'm currently creating a system for creating cool stories. Don't worry. For my own consumption and pleasure not for any kind of publishing. And I might make anti-slop tools a part of the pipeline to achieve best outcomes for myself.
> Your brain is deep fried in dopamine if you’re seriously
Nah, I've been like that since before personal computer became a thing. ADHD probably.
Also I'm walking outside a lot and my brain races from one cool thhought to another while I'm walking. I barely notice the surroundings because most of the time they are about 20% as interesting as my thoughts.
Unpopular take: if it was never critical or mandatory to disclose who you have read before publishing your own writing then you dont need to disclose ai use.
Let the reader decide the value of what they read at face value.
I honestly feel this ai disclosure thing is just pure mindless elitism and worse - entitlement - from readers. "Crappy" writing has always existed, deal with it. Stop reading as soon as you want
Disagree. There's a power imbalance between how easy it is to write something by hand and slap a human label next to AI output. "Let the reader decide" is not fair in a world where the reader then sees >90% AI writing in internet search results.
Remember how the internet works: you request the content. Web content is not a highway billboard you didnt ask for. If you found a "crappy" content consider your referral. We should all consider our sourcing. The world doesn't owe us anything
This kind of thinking assumes quantitative changes never result in qualitative change. Which is demonstrably false. Obviously there are thresholds where phase transitions happen.
Take saltwatwer and cell. After some threshold of saltiness is passed, the water flow reverses from into the cell to away from the cell. And the cell frikkin dies.
This kind of argument doesn't bother to demonstrate the parallel in the logic. This bad form of argumentation should be labelled non rigorous. Then I would've have read it at all.
You never bothered explaining why saltwater is ai writing and readers are cells, nor what the parallel of immersion or osmotic pressure would be.
You lazily wanted me to fill in the details and be convinced. Why did you create this bad argument and leave it unlabelled.
> Web content is not a highway billboard you didnt ask for.
Web content discovery is almost universally funded by advertisers… while yes the core technology is requests based, the things you get recommended are harder to control.
Unfortunately slop is very cheap to produce compared to human generated content and literally endless, so content providers have an incentive to push as much as their users will tolerate.
However, you will need to cover multiple models as I've found some get no flag on some engines (unless that one does it? I have only used free sites like GPT-Z, ZG, Gmy, Sapling, Copyleaks)
I think the argument is misguided, even if I agree with the principle: it is based in the effort one puts in and how it's similar to a sport.
I don't care whether my favorite author sweated for months facing a typewriter, of he effortlessly dictated the final form of the book in one sitting to a secretary while sipping mojitos.
I think my issue with AI has more to do with the signal it sends: reading takes effort, particularly literature, and I use the author's name as a proxy to judge whether to invest that effort myself. Nothing bad in selling dollar store crap, but it's bad to put 'Nike' on it.
Your individuality is what you sell as an author. I can get access to the LLM without you.
i don't get your point. am i reading the article in a different way?
my reading is: if you use AI to help you write, then i can't know how much of the work is yours and how much is AI. therefore, when AI helps i have to expect the worst and assume that it is mainly AI and your input is very little. consequently, don't use AI at all, or the work is no longer yours.
i think that's a pretty good argument. it's not about the effort you made but about the amount of control you have over the text. and, as you say, the signal it sends. so i think you agree more with the article than you say.
what is weird is the title: don't say you use AI for writing, but then in the text it says: don't lie. if you can't do either then you can't use AI for writing, so why not just say it directly: don't use AI to help you writing.
I should have clarified or quoted, my bad. I was talking about the work references, mainly this paragraph:
>was I tempted to use AI to speed things up? No. It would be like hooking a motor to a stationary bike and calling that exercise. It would be like taking a helicopter to the top of Everest and saying that I summited.
And you can read a car maintenance book. That doesn't mean you can fix your car now.
The author vouched the LLM output using their experience, that's what you get. Unless you are as experienced in their domain, it will take you time to figure out if the output of your LLM prompt is correct or non-sense.
It doesn't work for me sorry, because you wouldn't accept a book by John, a friend of Hemingway, as a Hemingway book no matter how much he assisted in editing. Nor a Picasso museum exhibition is by Marie because Marie chose which paintings to display.
I think a better analogy is cartoon or animated films. The artist, creator, engineer lays the key frames, the plot points, characters, etc. The team builds it. Fills in gaps, especially with direct input from the creator.
The creator still gets the credit.
LLMs can just be the part that accelerates laying the code down.
I think folks are just too emotional over a tool that we are ignoring drawing similarities on purpose. That or just different audiences, hackers vs professionals. The latter just meaning being payed and usually working in a team. The styles can be different and the value placed on crafted code vs results.
they are, but when i read a scifi magazine like clarkesworld, i can trust that the editor made a good selection of stories. the work of the editor does have value. it's just a different value.
and how do you handle the reverse? use AI as the editor for a hemmingway book. is it still hemmingway?
>the work of the editor does have value. it's just a different value.
I mostly agree with that, with some caveats (in short, there's an uncomfortably thin line to appropriating the curated work, consciously or not).
>and how do you handle the reverse? use AI as the editor for a hemmingway book. is it still hemmingway?
I'd be comfortable saying at least that it's less misleading to declare that book as written by Hemingway. Doing so is more in line with the social expectations that come with having the author's signature on it.
But who vouches for the author? If you're not already experienced in the domain, how would you know whether to pick up a book written by Jane Expert or by Dave Dunning-Kruger?
Traditional authorship is self-vouching: writing a coherent book on a complicated subject is hard. You can't exactly bullshit your way through 500 pages of car maintenance minutia. If a book actually manages to make its way all the way to a book store, there is a pretty good chance it is worth reading.
LLMs change this equation. Any idiot can prompt an LLM into writing reasonable-sounding slop, so any idiot can now write a book on any subject. Combine that with self-publishing and print-on-demand, and suddenly all bets are off.
If 99% of LLM-written (or LLM-"assisted") books on a subject are garbage you aren't going to buy a book and hope it is the 1% - it makes far more sense to save yourself the money and get the mediocre answer by prompting the LLM yourself. Want expert information? Just buy an LLM-free book written by an actual expert.
These articles on using AI for writing are all very binary. You can use AI in a variety of ways when writing: improve grammar, correct typos, better organize ideas/concepts/sentence structure/sentences, and dozens of other “how applications (as opposed to “what”).
It’s not like people feel the need to explain that they used a spellchecker or thesaurus or googled the correct use of an idiom, etc.
There seems to be a general need for some people to dunk on valuable AI use by refusing to acknowledge that there are a many ways to use a tool. (Similar story on using AI for coding.)
Echoing a comment from above, why would I care whether a sentence was formulated by AI or John or a ghostwriter or John who asked Jane for feedback before rewriting?
I care about the content. If I don’t like the way it’s written or if I’m irked by how it is written (ooh, an emdash — how embarrassing!) then I don’t need to read it.
Personally, I’m much more annoyed when I click on an article that sounds interesting, and the author tries to show off their penmanship by starting with five pages of “a history of X” or a tangential but redundant personal story before getting to the point. IMHO most non-fiction writing on the web could be accomplished in bullets. But again, that’s just my very personal preference…
The problem lies with people trying to claim credit without doing the work: writing. AI is a fantastic tool that catches flow errors, grammar problems and punctuation misuse, just like a copywriter. But copywriters don't get bylines.
My line is clear, if you use copy paste the AI output that's not your writing. I am okay with AI collaboration - it detects the errors, you decide what to do with them.
Yeah, cool. The only way to get past resume filters now is to have AI write your CV and cover letter. TAs in school will grade you higher on your papers if you use AI so your papers sound like the median of all academic papers - you get down graded if it is "in your own voice".
So, I agree with the moral stance of the article, and I personally take all the Ls from all the CV rejection, and the lower grades because I write the paper myself. Just realize that you are choosing life on hard mode for negative societal and "dominance hierarchy" benefit.
> If AI deeply collaborates with you to write something, why am I saying you shouldn’t say you used AI? Because all I have is your word for it that you did any work at all.
If the author of this write up actually used AI for writing he would have way more than just word. Because you can definitely tell AI output that somebody put no effort into from output that somebody put in a ton of effort into.
It can be as much of a difference as between artistic photograph and a photo from a photo-trap installed in the forest or from a speed camera.
This is a very tiring article. I follow the author on LinkedIn. Their comments are always along the same lines, containing complex criticisms. I'd suggest they use artificial intelligence to summarize exactly what they mean in a shorter way.
basically
disclosed public ai
undisclosed private ai
this only works, any thing public should be disclosed you can do anything when you are working locally as you know but it should be explicitly discloses as soon as it goes public.
If an LLM is used in the drafting of an article, this should, at least, be disclosed, preferably at the beginning of the article. For example, I recently came across this article ( https://thedispatch.com/article/affordability-crisis-healthc... ). The LLM voice was suppressed well enough until this inane passage:
"One number. Four completely different stories. The number is engineered to include all of them, because including all of them is what produces the 49 percent."
I decided to fact-check a statement ("CNN’s May 2026 survey found the share of Americans spontaneously naming gas prices as their top economic problem rose from 5 percent to 23 percent in a single year, with food costs cited almost as often") and it was incorrect (food costs were in fact cited more often than gas prices). Since the first thing I checked was wrong, I decided it wasn't worth my time reading the rest of the article. It was, as they say these days, slop.
It felt like a little bit of my time had been stolen. If a disclosure had been at the top, it would have been more of a caveat emptor situation.
When I write something heavily edited by AI - I mention that I use AI assistance (not AI led thinking). I will probably remove that because the perception is quite different. Its like applying one applying to an engineering job but write "a pychic, a medium" in a corner of their resume.
It is very common to see that any interesting thought gets immediately tagged like AI slop and the real AI slop wins. Try an A/B test and you shall see that AI actually wins because of the people who hate AI. Most people cannot distinguish between a human and a AI written post and yet those same people want to be judgemental. And the people who are against AI and say "its just the next token generator and I don't use it" and yet use autocomplete on their mobiles are just duplicit. And yes AI is the next-token-generator, we have no proof that most humans were not brainwashed to become the same.
I don’t use autocomplete, either. But if I did that would not be hypocritical. Autocomplete does not operate on the level of key ideas.
The “humans are just as bad” argument holds no water. Humans have many infirmities, but you can form relationships of trust with people who earn trust and deserve it. You can hold people accountable, personally and publicly. With the exception of rare criminals and the severely mentally ill, you understand people and you can work with them.
Anyway, if you hire someone to pretend to be you, that’s fraud. That’s being a scammer. Don’t do that. For the same reason, don’t let AI write in your name.
Or if you do, remember that I warned you how your reputation would collapse and people would stop taking your work seriously.
> My policy is that I never let AI draft anything for me that has my name on it. Not one sentence. Nothing. Ever.
> If AI deeply collaborates with you to write something, why am I saying you shouldn’t say you used AI? Because all I have is your word for it that you did any work at all.
So using author's logic, I should not trust them when they say they never use AI for writing, because all we have is their word.
> “I’m a skilled liar. I frequently tell lies. But don’t worry, I wouldn’t lie to you!”
Interesting how saying you used any amount of AI instantly labels you as "a skilled liar" to the author.
The conclusion conflicts oddly with the author's arguments and interests. Attributing LLM usage would actually help the author avoid articles even touched by LLMs, but they indirectly admit being haphazardly dismissive.
Their arguments are mostly addressed by proper, clear attribution. "My sister helped with my homework essay" deserves distrust withour further clarification.
Comparing LLM usage to lying is a fun perspective, but most of the lying happens in attribution. Their moral against lying also seems silly.
I would never use AI for something where I need my own voice, say a blog post or a personal letter.
But I'm not ashamed to say that I used it last week in a chat conversation with a recruiter to turn this:
1. I just said I'm hard of hearing and prefer text.
2. If it's only two minutes you can darn well send email.
into this:
As I mentioned, I'm hard of hearing and phone calls are difficult for me —
I find I miss things and it's frustrating for both sides. If it's just a
couple of minutes' worth of information, an email works great and I can
give you a thoughtful response. Happy to go from there!
I'm not ashamed, I think I'm right, and I'll do it again. This recruiter didn't deserve my authentic voice or my personal toil, not for this task.
If it makes James Bach think I'm a liar, that's a price I'm willing to pay.
What was the value-add of AI here? Some modicum of undeserved politeness instead of the curt bullet points you prompted with? Or an intentional “fuck you” by sending something sloppy with AI tells?
It’s not that you are a liar, it’s that I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you are. Not just me, but also many other people will automatically discount whatever you say when they suspect they are talking to something not-you that bears your name.
Maybe it’s not your goal to be seriously? But if it is…
It’s a perfectly reasonable position, though that may be because I share it.
If you’ve “written” something with AI, I have idea if you even read it, thus I have no idea if it even really reflects your thoughts. And I don’t care what a computer has to say, I care what a human has to say.
The problem we have now is determining if the person actually wrote it. It suddenly got a lot easier for people to get someone else to generate text. And there are a lot more lazy humans than skilled writers.
> If you’ve “written” something with AI, I have idea if you even read it, thus I have no idea if it even really reflects your thoughts. And I don’t care what a computer has to say, I care what a human has to say.
At a more fundamental level, if AI generated it then I have no trust it is actually true or reflects facts or matches reality. It's insulting to throw AI slop at us because you expect us to read something you didn't bothered to write or perhaps even read. The text is probably all wrong with a veneer of well sounding verbiage, and potentially is created to drive engagement instead of actually communicating useful information.
And the great gatsby can be summarized as “rich guy throws parties and then dies” - but sometimes saying something slowly is the point. Sometimes doing something slowly is the point too.
I don't think this is accurate. The key sentence is "don’t use AI to write things for you that you present as your own work". This leaves many other ways to use AI.
If you are serious, then AI has already begin to rot your brain.
My post was much more than saying “don’t use AI.”
I use AI. I even use AI adjacent to my writing. But with me, you always know that my written words are directly from me. They sound like me. I pretty much write how I talk, albeit more grammatically.
My post was about why you are taking a big risk with your reputation/brand if you let AI draft your written communication on your behalf.
> If you are serious, then AI has already begin to rot your brain.
First, it's not a good look to start off your rebuttal with an ad hominem. Based on the high standards you speak to in your post, and your concern about reputations, I would have expected more.
> I use AI. I even use AI adjacent to my writing. But with me, you always know that my written words are directly from me. They sound like me. I pretty much write how I talk, albeit more grammatically.
To play the role of cynic, what does "AI adjacent to my writing" even mean? You wrote in your post:
> If AI deeply collaborates with you to write something, why am I saying you shouldn’t say you used AI? Because all I have is your word for it that you did any work at all.
Who decides if your "adjacent" use of AI was deep or meaningful? You wrote:
> Unless I know exactly how you did that work– which would have to have been from personal observation– I can’t know the truth.
You're admitting that you use AI but only "adjacent to [your] writing". Even if you explain what that means, how can I trust you? I wasn't there to personally observe how you used AI.
If you consult with AI in any fashion to flesh out an idea, test your arguments, etc., someone with an even more extreme position could say, "Well, even if he wrote the words, AI must have influenced his writing in some way, perhaps even unconsciously, and therefore everything he wrote is tainted."
It's not a good look to start a comment with any variation of "you're being rude," either. So I guess both of us are prickly?
You misunderstood my blog post in an odd way that's hard for me to account for unless you just didn't read carefully. Hence, my annoyed quip.
I wrote in my policy, referred to in the post, that I never have AI draft anything for me. But I was quite explicit that I may use AI to aid my research in various ways-- just as I use Google search and other tools. I might create a monte carlo simulation to test my understanding of probability before making a bold pronouncement about statistical matter, too.
So, what I mean by adjacent is "next to" but not "on top of" or "inside." That's what most people mean by adjacent. I don't have AI draft any text for me. I type it all myself. I choose the words and sentence forms and rhetorical structure and overall strategy myself. That's how you know it's me and not some AI masquerading as me.
> I don't have AI draft any text for me. I type it all myself. I choose the words and sentence forms and rhetorical structure and overall strategy myself. That's how you know it's me and not some AI masquerading as me.
Let's walk through this very carefully.
Your post states:
> If AI deeply collaborates with you to write something, why am I saying you shouldn’t say you used AI? Because all I have is your word for it that you did any work at all. Unless I know exactly how you did that work– which would have to have been from personal observation– I can’t know the truth.
Now let's look at your policy, which states:
> I allow myself to use AI to help develop or critique ideas or to critique text. I hate to be wrong. If AI can help me be less wrong, I welcome it. Although I always start with my own ideas, I might ask AI to challenge those ideas, or independently research the topic. I would then look over its work and decide if I want to cover a new topic or angle that the AI may have indicated.
> I might also ask AI to review the final text and spot typos or sloppy writing. In other words, I can use AI the same way I would let a human colleague help me write a piece for which I would nevertheless declare myself sole author.
Do you not see the problem here? You admit that you use AI as a stand-in for a human editor. You admit that you use AI to "help develop or critique ideas or to critique text". You admit that you use AI to do research. You even admit that this process might lead you to decide "to cover a new topic or angle that the AI may have indicated."
Do you not believe that some of this falls afoul of your own standard ("if AI deeply collaborates with you to write something...")? If you don't, please explain why you believe AI helping you develop and critique your ideas and text is not "deep" collaboration. And please explain how anyone reading your work, without the "personal observation" you referred to in your post, would know how much influence your use of AI had on the words you wrote.
> First, it's not a good look to start off your rebuttal with an ad hominem. Based on the high standards you speak to in your post, and your concern about reputations, I would have expected more.
This is such a lazy and tired way of talking around someone. You started off with a rude, dismissive statement which was intended to cause offense. Now that offense was taken and returned, you’re playing the “you aren’t being polite enough” game.
It’s transparent, and you are not entitled to politeness.
You're right, but I don't think there's anything particularly insightful about the author's perspective.
People are allowed to set their expectations/standards but in 2026 taking the position that use of AI is lying (when not disclosed) and trust destroying (when disclosed) is basically going to set you up for a lot of disappointment. It's just unrealistic.
For better or worse, AI is being used everywhere and it's harder and harder to spot, especially when the use is "thoughtful". Your only real defense is to think critically about the content you're consuming to determine whether it's accurate and has value.
> it's harder and harder to spot, especially when the use is "thoughtful".
It's not, only suckers think otherwise. The more you consume, the easier it gets to spot them, and also you get bored of it quicker. Which is fine for an actual tool.
IMO: if you think it's problematic if people could spot AI tool marks, you're not actually viewing or using AI as a tool. Rocket scientists aren't ashamed of using high end 5-axis CNC or SLS laser metal 3D printers to make rocket engines. Good machinists can tell how they were made, and that should mostly inspire confidence. If someone thinks the tool marks for a specific type of a tool needs to be hidden for the artifacts to be trusted, there has to be something wrong somewhere with the tool or how it's used, or both. Likely both.
Anyone looking at a Boeing 787 can tell that it flies on a pair of turbofan engines, and it's cool. Most people looking at AI images can tell it's generated using AI, and some can even identify models used, and that is NOT cool. That should be a strong enough sign that something is wrong with AI.
This was on the front page for a while yesterday. A decent amount of discussion. I'm quite sure this was produced using AI.
I was the only person who mentioned it.
AI is really easy to spot if it's being used to do all the work. It's less easy to spot when it's being used as a starting point, for editorial passes, concept development, argument refinement, etc.
> People are allowed to set their expectations/standards but in 2026 taking the position that use of AI is lying (when not disclosed) and trust destroying (when disclosed) is basically going to set you up for a lot of disappointment. It's just unrealistic.
Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.
Or you could engage with content critically, understanding that in this day and age, you can't be 100% sure of its provenance. Decide whether it's accurate, insightful, worth thinking about and researching further, etc. based on its substance, not who you think produced it and how.
You are asking many readers to do substantial amount of work for something nobody potentially put any effort into. This is the fundamental imbalance. Much like answering unknown numbers, reading articles from new sources has become a time wasting trap.
It is absolutely possible to produce an insightful article using AI. But it intakes skill and dedication few people have.
> You are asking many readers to do substantial amount of work for something nobody potentially put any effort into. This is the fundamental imbalance. Much like answering unknown numbers, reading articles from new sources has become a time wasting trap.
But AI is only the latest continuation of what you're describing. The internet has been full of slop (clickbait, SEO-bait, etc.) and propaganda/disinformation for many years before AI was even a thing. Social media gave every person on the planet with a heartbeat and internet connection a publishing platform over a decade ago.
The only realistic approach for dealing with this is to exercise critical thought when you consume content. And if the massive volume of content we're flooded with is problematic, narrow the sources from which you consume content and consume less of it. Get off social media. Disavow YouTube. Don't doom scroll the news. And so on.
I don't see this article as inconsistent with exercising critical thought. In a sense, this policy the author is describing is itself an exercise of critical thought. And it's one way of narrowing the sources from which they consume content. Exercising critical thought involves noticing patterns and developing heuristics and rubrics to judge things. That's entirely compatible with what the article describes.
Saying "if you use AI and don't tell me, you're a liar and if you use AI and tell me, I won't trust anything you write" is not critical thought. It's a sledgehammer filter and basically impossible to apply because there is virtually no way in 2026 to identify the provenance of any content you consume.
The likelihood that the author has consumed and trusted content that was produced using AI in some form, and not even realized it, is close to 100%. It's literally everywhere these days, and not everyone using it is using it to do all the work. But it leaves little hints that it was involved.
There are frequently posts that hit the front page of HN that have numerous AI fingerprints that produce discussion devoid of any comments questioning whether they were produced using AI. And HNers are probably one of the groups more likely than the general population to be able to identify AI content.
Ugh that sounds like a lot of work. Are you sure we can't just throw shallow dismissals around and feel smug about it, rather than interacting with the contents of what something is saying?
Isn't that, ironically, exactly the sentiment that motivates people to use AI to produce content?
I think your comment hints at the reality: we're all just increasingly lazy. We want to minimize how much time and effort it takes to produce content, and at the same time we want to minimize how much time and effort it takes to engage with it.
> Decide whether it's accurate, insightful, worth thinking about and researching further, etc. based on its substance
This is the part the original human poster is assumed to have screened as a first step, not the audience, particularly if the audience is unfamiliar with the subject (such as a guide, etc).
I literally came across a guide online from a user who wasn't a spammer, who disclaimed they haven't even read the very guide they posted as an article on their website, as it was LLM generated. At least that user put up a disclaimer but why would I trust such a guide, given my and others' extremely inconsistent experience with the veracity of LLM output and as someone coming to the guide to learn (ie: not a domain expert)? Overwhelmingly other users don't put up such disclaimers so we don't even get to know whether they've vetted anything.
Trust is the key thing. To continually erode reader trust means you're putting the burden at every step on the reader. Sure, one should always apply critical thinking to even human output but there is an implicit, baseline assumption that with human output they're at least familiar with what they've output (whether they're lying or telling the truth or ignorant but honest). LLMs meanwhile handle ground truths in a flaky way, such as when they'll hallucinate quotes from even articles they claim to have read and cited. And the most common models users are using are the cheapest/free ones anyway, only compounding the accuracy issues.
Imagine you went to a library assuming authors, publishers and library staff have done some minimum due diligence only to find the library is being replaced rapidly with books that no one in the chain has read.
No one can be a domain expert in every single thing they encounter, which is why we place trust in others to varying degrees to fill in the gaps based on their experience and knowledge, even if you're a dyed in the wool skeptic. When increasingly what we encounter isn't being vetted as a basic first step then it's a waste of time and rude to the audience, which only decreases peoples' tolerance for bullshit and increases cynicism (which we could use less of).
We should be better than genAI. For me, with things like coding and writing, I think I'm better than it. For painting? It wins over me. But I'd never in a million years claim creation of a painting I prompted, even if I went and modified it after. Same with code or writing, for that matter.
For the record, I never use AI in writing. First, it's no fun, and that's really reason enough. It'd be like sending a bot to watch a movie for me. Second, I'm better than it is, and it would just be an exercise in frustration micromanaging its every word. I might as well just type what I want it to say.
And third, most importantly, who would read anything I wrote if they could just generate it themselves? The goal is to be better.
> And third, most importantly, who would read anything I wrote if they could just generate it themselves?
This should be embarrassingly obvious to everyone, but allegedly there are hoards of vibecoders and other slop producers to whom it never occurs (if it's not astroturfers pretending to be that). If prompt slinging is your only expertise, you already are redundant.
Meh. I‘d be happy if my AI built my program just the way that I want it, but it turns out to be a lot of work go get it to do that (Deepseek, Claude might be a bit less involved).
I still have to make a bunch of decisions based on its research, so it still turns out to be hours of work that can go into it.
Granted, I can probably optimize some things by encoding my style preferences. But so far it has been a lot more involved than „make me an app, make no mistakes“.
That‘s why I‘d call it in a large part my work. It‘s my vision, in the same way an architect that has never personally laid a brick can call a building „their work“.
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On the other hand, you might be better than AI if given maximal time, attention, and energy.
But the question is how often are you better at all the tasks where you don’t have maximal time, attention, and energy - and it would make no sense to invest it.
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It was difficult to finish reading your post after you put the OP down for stating that they believe they're more original and more capable than an LLM. Maybe leave that part out next time, or at least don't lead with it. It does not help your argument the way you think it does.
I wonder why you would mince your words about LLM use at all though. Instead of couching your methods in language like, "I 'built' a program," or, "I've 'crafted' a novel," you ought to just put your money where your mouth is and say, "I used LLMs to make [something]."
If want to be up-front and proud about the fact that you use LLMs in your work, just dot that without indirection or ornamentation. Wear that attitude on your sleeve and let your audience determine if your work is worth their attention.
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> It would be more charitable to substitute myself for him in that part to avoid causing distress.
FWIW, I've been on the Internet for a long, long time. I took no offense. But I still think I'm better than AI at those things. :)
>> We should be better than genAI.
> Why exactly?
I think the top reason for most people is so that they're worth hiring. If you offer no more than an AI, what is your value?
Is scotty79 human? Was this written by you? Or are you just an AI? And if you are human and wrote it, why did you do that when an AI could do it better than you? And if an AI could do it better, why even communicate with you? I could just go talk to Claude.
Other reasons might be to push the SOTA past what an genAI can do. Or to produce human work in human society.
Maybe someday we'll be past needing to be hired to eat, and then maybe we just stop worrying and let genAI be better than all of us. But I find that to be undesirable.
> And you are definitely not better than you + AI.
I think this is what I'm saying. If you're not better, you're just in the way. If you're not better, then you < you + AI.
Here's an example: early ChatGPT sucked at remotely complex jq. I wanted a function to do fuzzy comparisons between JSON objects, and it just could not get it right. I didn't speak jq, so it was just me pasting errors and output and cutting code--zero value add.
Eventually I gave up. I then spent 3 hours working on learning jq and and came up with a more robust and capable solution than ChatGPT had been working toward.
Now you're going to correctly say that ChatGPT didn't have enough training data to perform well with this relatively new and relatively infrequently-used language.
But my point is that you need to be better than it so you can do novel things that it can't.
All this assumes, of course, that the AI-bro future of AI doing everything doesn't come to pass. If it does, it'll be global economic collapse and we can just go back to feudalism.
> I no longer say I wrote a program
Other management verbs work well here, I think. "Produced", "oversaw", "managed development of", etc.
> In the end I believe the content is the king.
I think so, too. The question is, do you have anything to offer, or should I just go to a bot?
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> Now I just point out behavior that I want to be different and the model figures it out. Often surprisingly quickly.
This seems to have low-to-zero value in the medium- to long-term. Probably some 90% of the population has the ability to sit in their living room and ask a genAI to build things. Why do I need to use your software? If I liked it, I'd just have my AI clone it.
And if everyone can just groom dogs (using this to mean "non-information work"), the value of that goes through the floor, too.
> I see AIs as providing quality (better) and humans as providing flavor
Humans are perhaps better than AI at providing flavor?
> I see myself now way more useful as contributing unique ideas of what could exist and how (on the high level) it could work.
Another example of being better.
> Except perhaps a bit of taste when it comes to directory layout and dependencies selection.
And another.
> I'm sure this comment would be an easier read if the bot read it for you and relied the ideas and information it contains
I'm not sure that's the case, but if it were and that's what I was doing, there'd be no point in human flavor. :(
> This seems to have low-to-zero value in the medium- to long-term.
On one hand, I don't think so. Because idea guys seemed to be doing well even in a world where it's super expensive to convert the idea into anything of value.
On the other regardless of what you do you can't earn money if the customer for whatever you are trying to sell has no money to pay you and that might be the case if a lot of people lose their income stream and nobody replaces it with something else.
> Probably some 90% of the population has the ability to sit in their living room and ask a genAI to build things. Why do I need to use your software? If I liked it, I'd just have my AI clone it.
Yes. And that's the beauty of it. You won't clone my software. Because it's mine. I won't even show it to you, let alone sell it or give it to you. But I'll happily sit in your living room with you to help you build one for yourself. Provided that you'll compensate me for my time and effort. Most software of the future will have userbase of 1. Everybody can exercise, yet people hire trainers. Everyone can live, yet people hire couches for everything imaginable. Can AI be a couch? Some day, but people stubbornly like human touch in that role.
> And if everyone can just groom dogs (using this to mean "non-information work"), the value of that goes through the floor, too.
My point is, jobs can be invented out of thin air if there's money around to spend. And they were. And they will be.
> Humans are perhaps better than AI at providing flavor?
Yes. And it might stay like that for a while longer. Just because we have billions of somewhat unique brains in stock.
>> Except perhaps a bit of taste when it comes to directory layout and dependencies selection. > And another.
Am I to take pride in my skill of directory naming? Am I to tie my self-worth with that? I don't think that's prudent.
It will go away soon anyways. I'm already learning new worthy dependencies from what AI built for me. And it does quite reasonable directory naming when prompted already.
>> I'm sure this comment would be an easier read if the bot read it for you and relied the ideas and information it contains
> I'm not sure that's the case,
You can try. Don't be afraid to experiment. It might be bad, but you might have ideas how to make it a bit better. You can tell agent your ideas and see how they pan out.
> but if it were and that's what I was doing, there'd be no point in human flavor.
If the human has interesting flavor to provide it tends to show up even in the finished product. Regardless of whether machine that built it was made of people and processes or just weights and loops.
> Because idea guys seemed to be doing well even in a world where it's super expensive to convert the idea into anything of value.
But now we're talking about a world where it's super cheap to do that.
> But I'll happily sit in your living room with you to help you build one for yourself. Provided that you'll compensate me for my time and effort.
I'd pay the market rate, which would be basically zero due to oversupply.
> but people stubbornly like human touch in that role.
A point of view I can definitely relate to. :) "ChatGPT, please summarize the heartfelt message my aging mother sent me."
Students also tell me this. When I discussed the whole idea of AI teacher "avatars" with them, their main feedback was that it was extremely disrespectful to them. They know how to use AI. They came to school to learn more than AI could teach them, from people who are better at teaching than AI is.
Admittedly, genAI is a pretty goddamn good teacher. But the best human teachers are better. And man, I would definitely prefer to read human-produced material, but it's really hard to separate the wheat from the chaff today.
> My point is, jobs can be invented out of thin air if there's money around to spend. And they were. And they will be.
I agree with you, but those jobs don't necessarily have any value if there's an oversupply of workers. And this is especially true for jobs that are easy to learn and perform.
Groundskeeping will pay zero. Food prep will pay zero. Even trades that are more challenging to learn (like electrical or welding) will pay zero when 20% of the population is a welder.
So I have the same question: where is the money going to come from? No money is economic collapse.
> Am I to take pride in my skill of directory naming? Am I to tie my self-worth with that? I don't think that's prudent.
Personally, at this point, my recommendation is that you tie your self-worth (when it comes to monetary production ability) to anything and everything you possibly can. Tie it to anything that gives you any edge whatsoever.
> Don't be afraid to experiment. It might be bad, but you might have ideas how to make it a bit better. You can tell agent your ideas and see how they pan out.
Yeah, I've done a lot of this. I'm impressed at how well it can get nearly up to par, but really unimpressed by how poorly it exceeds it. I mean, it's good. But it's not standout.
But in this case, I don't like how it would strip away the you part of your message. If all I cared about was raw information, I wouldn't even be here now. I'd just have my secretary-bot summarize and write a response. I want this conversation to be with you, human scotty79.
What is your job, out of curiosity, if you're willing to share? And if it's tech, what do you plan to do after that market is gone?
> But now we're talking about a world where it's super cheap to do that.
Yes, so I imagine the value of idea (and being "idea guy") only grows in such world, because now the idea has way higher chance and lower cost of becoming materialized. And unmaterialized ideas are and always were worth zero.
> I'd pay the market rate, which would be basically zero due to oversupply.
That entirely depends on the demand. If someone can afford a fitness coach to help them work on their body, they can afford personal AI jokey to help them work on their own personal web browser or fitness app. It's not that different from how I started my career. There was this newfangled thing called the internet and I bet my future on the belief that people (individuals and small companies) might want to do something with that at some point so I can be there to share what I know thus far.
Every moment when each individual person is pissed at software, in their living room, is your potential business opportunity now. And people are pissed at software a lot.
>> but people stubbornly like human touch in that role. > A point of view I can definitely relate to. :)
I don't really mind that sentiment. I'm a human so if they are willing to pay extra for a human it might be good for me in whatever context. It also keeps lines to automated checkouts and order kiosks short, which I absolute love.
> Students also tell me this. When I discussed the whole idea of AI teacher "avatars" with them, their main feedback was that it was extremely disrespectful to them.
I think that's fair. They paid (?) good money for a human. Bait and switch is rarely welcomed. But also Khan academy exists and for many people is way more effective. And so AI driven education software is going to be at some point, probably, imho.
> They know how to use AI. They came to school to learn more than AI could teach them, from people who are better at teaching than AI is.
School ultimately rarely is the dream fulfillment. But I imagine paying for school and being put in front of an AI you are perfectly capable of putting yourself in front of feels bad. It's as if the entire curriculum consisted of the address of the public library.
Most teachers don't really know what to do with AI. I think smart students will figure it out first.
> Admittedly, genAI is a pretty goddamn good teacher.
Oh? I don't really track what's the progress in teaching. My own style of learning has always been "pull" based, and "as needed". I would like to create software to teach me German at some relatively close point in the future.
> But the best human teachers are better. And man, I would definitely prefer to read human-produced material, but it's really hard to separate the wheat from the chaff today.
Encountering even a single great teacher is a grat luck and privilege. Not everyone is this lucky.
> those jobs don't necessarily have any value if there's an oversupply of workers.
I don't think jobs are much about value anymore. Bulk of the value in the economy has been created by machines for a long time now. Needs and wants are manufactured by ad industry. Fulfilling them doesn't really involve value. In their own evaluation many people's jobs don't contribute anything of value to society and some believe they actively bring harm.
> So I have the same question: where is the money going to come from? No money is economic collapse.
For me the money is just an accounting system. Money is not a resource. It is a method for keeping track of how much of the future output of human civilization you are entitled to. How it's awarded and deducted is completely arbitrary. We are currently using markets for seeking optimal allocation but we stray far from the markets already because natural attractor for this allocation method is civilizationally unappealing in many ways. And still our tweeks of this allocation method don't make it gravitate to a lot of desirable outcomes. We probably never replace it wholesale but we might be braver with adjustments in the future. Money and value are two different things. How we organize money affects value production of course. But it's never one to one.
> Personally, at this point, my recommendation is that you tie your self-worth (when it comes to monetary production ability) to anything and everything you possibly can. Tie it to anything that gives you any edge whatsoever.
I don't think it's a good idea. Things will progress. The debris you can hold onto are going to get smaller and smaller as they sink. If you keep holding to the last bits that still stick out of the water you will drown. The boat sunk. This time, that the pieces that still float give you, shouldn't be spent for looking for the piece that will sink last or frantically grasping the closest ones. You should be looking around to find something else entirely or at least a piece of boat that maybe is a hefty swim away but at least looks like it might have positive buoyancy, maybe to even keep you afloat till next event or till your natural death. I'm trying to learn to swim even though I know that also won't last.
> I'm impressed at how well it can get nearly up to par, but really unimpressed by how poorly it exceeds it. I mean, it's good. But it's not standout.
Yeah. I haven't fallen in love with the execution too much. AI haven't built me anything of unseen unique perfection. But it's way better than it used to be and I can draw a straight line on a graph in my head.
What I'm absolutely delighted is that it's good enough to explore 100 times more things than were worth exploring a year ago.
I think the space of ideas is severely underexplored. The only engine we have for exploring ideas at scale is capitalism. And its resources are limited and held tightly to the chest. Business basically takes no risks and aims for rent seeking. Most of the breakthroughs of the last centuries came from risks undertaken by the taxpayers funding science. Variety of capitalism's outputs is superficial. You have 1000 products to choose from when you need nothing, but when you actually need a specific product it turns out nobody sells exactly what you need. AI lets me explore the space in between of what capitalism offers. Things that it wouldn't be able to offer. Maybe it's a stupid analogy that just came to my mind but the market offers real numbers and AI suddenly opened the world of irrationals. Sure, most of them are not that interesting, but there's whole infinity of them in between of every two real numbers. There's bound to be something good there, even if there can't be any market for it. And now exploring that space is viably cheap.
> But in this case, I don't like how it would strip away the you part of your message. If all I cared about was raw information, I wouldn't even be here now. I'd just have my secretary-bot summarize and write a response. I want this conversation to be with you, human scotty79.
I'm not gonna kink-shame. ;-) But I don't share that craving. Although I'm always delighted to talk to someone (?) whose intelligence I can recognize.
> What is your job, out of curiosity, if you're willing to share? And if it's tech, what do you plan to do after that market is gone?
Software developer. According to people I know, a good one, although I have my doubts. My biggest strengths were always in the debugging. I didn't really like to build stuff before AI because I always knew that's gonna be a heap of work and I'm lazy. But the debugging could always keep me hooked. My expertise is pretty common. Webapps (although I dabbled in other things). Full-stack. I always was doing everything I needed to do. Now that thing is AI.
As for my plans for the future. Financially I'm set, but if I lose it, I see myself sharing my findings in the domain of AI wrangling for the purposes of irrational seafaring, with people and companies, for money.
I will be sure to die before living in your future
Right? What a hideous and repulsive vision of the future. No humanity, just artifice and comfortable lies. I’ll take genuine human society any day.
I would pay for any tools that block “ai agents” from talking to me. Hell I would pay for a tool right now to filter ai slop from the feeds.
Oh no. Comfort. How will we ever suffer it!
I don't like lies. So I won't be optimizing for lies. But I also don't like garbage. So I'll be optimizing for filtering it out. Even if the source of garbage are genuine humans.
I had a suspicion some time ago that this craving for genuine has masochistic foundations. You just provided me with another point in the pointcloud, I'm trying to infer the shape of reality out of.
> Hell I would pay for a tool right now to filter ai slop from the feeds.
Agent can build one for you. Even today. But the first step is to take full control of your feed sources. If you are browsing cookie cutter websites with a cookie cutter browser, it might be hard to do.
> Oh no. Comfort. How will we ever suffer it!
You jest, but this is the human condition. People in comfort suffer all the time. It's the basis for the expression "familiarity breeds contempt".
You might have someone who has everything they ever wanted, and yet they will still say, "And yet..."
This is why people react so strongly. They sense that having their every need taken care of is a special type of Hell. There was a episode of the "new" Twilight Zone in the 80s that used this device, I believe.
And the "masochism" is part of that. There is no light without the darkness. People at the equator will never feel the joy of springtime; one must have known the cold of winter in order to do so.
> You jest, but this is the human condition. People in comfort suffer all the time. It's the basis for the expression "familiarity breeds contempt".
Humans are diverse. There are humans that climb tallest mountain for no objective reason, getting frostbite for life and still feeling unfulfilled. And there are humans that happily and contently live their whole life in one house. There's no universal "human condition".
> There is no light without the darkness.
Human narrations are full of false dichotomies. In metaphorical sense light and darkness are nearly completely orthogonal.
History of our species was filled with incredible amounts of suffering. It's normal to have circuits in the brain and associated narratives that embellish, glorify and legitimize suffering.
> People at the equator will never feel the joy of springtime; one must have known the cold of winter in order to do so.
Yeah, you'll never experience the joy of healing if you don't impale yourself on that sharp object.
You don't have to experience everything in life. This also goes for pain induced pleasures. It's perfectly fine to choose not to experience something (when existence awards you the opportunity to pass on it).
Generative LLMs will take writing that predates their entire existence and loudly proclaim "this is 90% AI"
> Agent can build one for you. Even today.
No… No they cannot.
This is why people say LLMs are rotting your brain. It’s not currently possible to distinguish LLM content from human content automatically and asking the slop machine to do it won’t achieve anything.
You would know that if you understood the problem domain. That is exactly why it is important to build real knowledge as a human, instead of relying on LLMs to do all your thinking for you. Give it a shot sometime.
> No… No they cannot.
Have you tried? Give it your feed. Ask it to pass it through antislop + SLOP_Detector + slop-forensics and whatever else your agent can find for you.
Will it filter out every last bit of AI content? No, but I'm sure it will spare you from more than half.
Will it leave in every last bit of human produced content? No. But the ones it's going to filter out are gonna read like slop to you anyways.
We are living in the real world. There are no perfect solutions for every wish. But a lot can be done towards fullfilling some of their parts. Thanks to agentic coding more than ever.
The difference between telling AI what to make and seeing how it goes, instead of sitting on your hands proclaiming it's impossible to make is really small. Hey, the best thing that could happen, it could confirm what you are already sure of.
> Have you tried? Give it your feed. Ask it to pass it through [...]
I've reworded this a few times but I still can't figure out how to say it gently, so I'm just going to say it. Your lack of knowledge about something - in this case the detection of LLM generated content - is not on the same footing as actually having knowledge about it. In this case I am already familiar enough with the state of the art for content classification to know that LLM detection systems are not reliable enough to apply to a feed.
> The difference between telling AI what to make and seeing how it goes, instead of sitting on your hands proclaiming it's impossible to make is really small.
And both achieve the same result: no usable tool. It's not worth spending the time or money it would take to slop together something that isn't going to do the job.
> Your lack of knowledge about something - in this case the detection of LLM generated content - is not on the same footing as actually having knowledge about it.
I'm not sure why are you saying that. Do I need to be on equal footing to suggest something to you? I'm obviously not on equal footing as a complete ignorant. I never touched the subject because my brain slop filter serves me perfectly well even though it's not 100% accurate.
> And both achieve the same result: no usable tool.
The goal is not to build revolutionary tool that achieves state-of-the-art in slop filtering. The goal is to make your life a bit better by cobbling few things together at near zero cost.
> It's not worth spending the time or money it would take to slop together something that isn't going to do the job.
What money? Have you maxed out your sub for the week? What time? I do such things while I'm cooking my dinner.
Processing this topic in your head (which you obviously did for quite a while to earn your footing) already costed you more time and at least as much money.
> I'm not sure why are you saying that.
To explain to you that you are wasting your time and that your suggestions on this are not going to move the needle, nor are they particularly valuable.
> I never touched the subject because my brain slop filter serves me perfectly well even though it's not 100% accurate.
The whole idea is to avoid wasting brain power on filtering slop.
> The goal is not to build revolutionary tool. The goal is to make your life a bit better.
And since it isn't possible to build the required tool, wasting time and money trying to get an LLM to do something that it can't will in no way make my life better.
> What money? Have you maxed out your sub for the week?
Are you somehow under the impression that all or even most people pay for LLM subscriptions? I concluded it wasn't worth the cost at all.
> What time? I do such things while I'm cooking my dinner.
You either spend time writing the prompt and checking the result, or you don't. I'm not interested in jiggling an LLM while I'm cooking.
> Processing this topic in your head (which you obviously did for quite a while to earn your footing) already costed you more time and about as much money.
Actually if you have knowledge about the field it doesn't take much time at all to sort things by difficulty and understand what approaches are possible and what are worthless. And I have the advantage of carrying that knowledge forward, which means I don't need to spend time prompting an LLM to learn what I already know.
> The whole idea is to avoid wasting brain power on filtering slop.
Not really different from wasting your muscle power in a gym. My rejections of trash content, by AI or humans are faster than ever.
> And since it isn't possible to build the required tool, wasting time and money trying to get an LLM to do something that it can't will in no way make my life better.
I guess I have zero chance to make you revisit your well informed opinion by doing anything practical. No matter how trivial and effortless.
> Are you somehow under the impression that all or even most people pay for LLM subscriptions? I concluded it wasn't worth the cost at all.
Ah, that explains a lot. Basically all of it.
> You either spend time writing the prompt and checking the result, or you don't. I'm not interested in jiggling an LLM while I'm cooking.
What do you do when you wait for the food to cook? My brains craves novelty and stimulation pretty much constantly. I used to game and read and watch stuff, but AI agentic coding is as fun and those things, possibly more.
If it’s so important to you personally that someone waste time and money trying to make an LLM slop machine shit out something that they can’t, be my guest and go ahead.
> My brains craves novelty and stimulation pretty much constantly.
Your brain is deep fried in dopamine if you’re seriously splitting your time between cooking and prompting. You should take a walk, drop the subscription for a while, get outside and soak up the sun.
I’m worried that you’re already pretty far down the path to psychosis, going by the rest of your responses.
> If it’s so important to you personally that someone waste time and money trying to make an LLM slop machine shit out something that they can’t, be my guest and go ahead.
Today, on nearly daily basis, I'm taking a stab at the things that were impossible until very recently. I already made useful progress on things that used to be impossible for me personally.
Slop detection wasn't my interest because I don't have a problem with it. But it might maybe soon. I'm currently creating a system for creating cool stories. Don't worry. For my own consumption and pleasure not for any kind of publishing. And I might make anti-slop tools a part of the pipeline to achieve best outcomes for myself.
> Your brain is deep fried in dopamine if you’re seriously
Nah, I've been like that since before personal computer became a thing. ADHD probably.
Also I'm walking outside a lot and my brain races from one cool thhought to another while I'm walking. I barely notice the surroundings because most of the time they are about 20% as interesting as my thoughts.
Unpopular take: if it was never critical or mandatory to disclose who you have read before publishing your own writing then you dont need to disclose ai use.
Let the reader decide the value of what they read at face value.
I honestly feel this ai disclosure thing is just pure mindless elitism and worse - entitlement - from readers. "Crappy" writing has always existed, deal with it. Stop reading as soon as you want
Disagree. There's a power imbalance between how easy it is to write something by hand and slap a human label next to AI output. "Let the reader decide" is not fair in a world where the reader then sees >90% AI writing in internet search results.
Remember how the internet works: you request the content. Web content is not a highway billboard you didnt ask for. If you found a "crappy" content consider your referral. We should all consider our sourcing. The world doesn't owe us anything
This kind of thinking assumes quantitative changes never result in qualitative change. Which is demonstrably false. Obviously there are thresholds where phase transitions happen.
Take saltwatwer and cell. After some threshold of saltiness is passed, the water flow reverses from into the cell to away from the cell. And the cell frikkin dies.
This kind of argument doesn't bother to demonstrate the parallel in the logic. This bad form of argumentation should be labelled non rigorous. Then I would've have read it at all.
You never bothered explaining why saltwater is ai writing and readers are cells, nor what the parallel of immersion or osmotic pressure would be.
You lazily wanted me to fill in the details and be convinced. Why did you create this bad argument and leave it unlabelled.
> Web content is not a highway billboard you didnt ask for.
Web content discovery is almost universally funded by advertisers… while yes the core technology is requests based, the things you get recommended are harder to control.
Unfortunately slop is very cheap to produce compared to human generated content and literally endless, so content providers have an incentive to push as much as their users will tolerate.
> Let the reader decide the value of what they read at face value.
The problem is that AI texts are flooding the web and hijacking the attention of humans, their most precious and scarce resource
> Stop reading as soon as you want
Then you already lost time
What if I run it through an AI detection model (eg Pangram) first, and if the shows up as AI I skip it entirely. Does that work for you?
However, you will need to cover multiple models as I've found some get no flag on some engines (unless that one does it? I have only used free sites like GPT-Z, ZG, Gmy, Sapling, Copyleaks)
I'm happy with Pangram so far.
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I think the argument is misguided, even if I agree with the principle: it is based in the effort one puts in and how it's similar to a sport.
I don't care whether my favorite author sweated for months facing a typewriter, of he effortlessly dictated the final form of the book in one sitting to a secretary while sipping mojitos.
I think my issue with AI has more to do with the signal it sends: reading takes effort, particularly literature, and I use the author's name as a proxy to judge whether to invest that effort myself. Nothing bad in selling dollar store crap, but it's bad to put 'Nike' on it.
Your individuality is what you sell as an author. I can get access to the LLM without you.
i don't get your point. am i reading the article in a different way?
my reading is: if you use AI to help you write, then i can't know how much of the work is yours and how much is AI. therefore, when AI helps i have to expect the worst and assume that it is mainly AI and your input is very little. consequently, don't use AI at all, or the work is no longer yours.
i think that's a pretty good argument. it's not about the effort you made but about the amount of control you have over the text. and, as you say, the signal it sends. so i think you agree more with the article than you say.
what is weird is the title: don't say you use AI for writing, but then in the text it says: don't lie. if you can't do either then you can't use AI for writing, so why not just say it directly: don't use AI to help you writing.
I should have clarified or quoted, my bad. I was talking about the work references, mainly this paragraph:
>was I tempted to use AI to speed things up? No. It would be like hooking a motor to a stationary bike and calling that exercise. It would be like taking a helicopter to the top of Everest and saying that I summited.
> I can get access to the LLM without you.
And you can read a car maintenance book. That doesn't mean you can fix your car now.
The author vouched the LLM output using their experience, that's what you get. Unless you are as experienced in their domain, it will take you time to figure out if the output of your LLM prompt is correct or non-sense.
Yeah, the somelier argument.
It doesn't work for me sorry, because you wouldn't accept a book by John, a friend of Hemingway, as a Hemingway book no matter how much he assisted in editing. Nor a Picasso museum exhibition is by Marie because Marie chose which paintings to display.
Authorship and edition are different claims.
I think a better analogy is cartoon or animated films. The artist, creator, engineer lays the key frames, the plot points, characters, etc. The team builds it. Fills in gaps, especially with direct input from the creator.
The creator still gets the credit.
LLMs can just be the part that accelerates laying the code down.
I think folks are just too emotional over a tool that we are ignoring drawing similarities on purpose. That or just different audiences, hackers vs professionals. The latter just meaning being payed and usually working in a team. The styles can be different and the value placed on crafted code vs results.
> The creator still gets the credit.
Actually, they all get credit, at least in Hollywood
they are, but when i read a scifi magazine like clarkesworld, i can trust that the editor made a good selection of stories. the work of the editor does have value. it's just a different value.
and how do you handle the reverse? use AI as the editor for a hemmingway book. is it still hemmingway?
>the work of the editor does have value. it's just a different value.
I mostly agree with that, with some caveats (in short, there's an uncomfortably thin line to appropriating the curated work, consciously or not).
>and how do you handle the reverse? use AI as the editor for a hemmingway book. is it still hemmingway?
I'd be comfortable saying at least that it's less misleading to declare that book as written by Hemingway. Doing so is more in line with the social expectations that come with having the author's signature on it.
But who vouches for the author? If you're not already experienced in the domain, how would you know whether to pick up a book written by Jane Expert or by Dave Dunning-Kruger?
Traditional authorship is self-vouching: writing a coherent book on a complicated subject is hard. You can't exactly bullshit your way through 500 pages of car maintenance minutia. If a book actually manages to make its way all the way to a book store, there is a pretty good chance it is worth reading.
LLMs change this equation. Any idiot can prompt an LLM into writing reasonable-sounding slop, so any idiot can now write a book on any subject. Combine that with self-publishing and print-on-demand, and suddenly all bets are off.
If 99% of LLM-written (or LLM-"assisted") books on a subject are garbage you aren't going to buy a book and hope it is the 1% - it makes far more sense to save yourself the money and get the mediocre answer by prompting the LLM yourself. Want expert information? Just buy an LLM-free book written by an actual expert.
These articles on using AI for writing are all very binary. You can use AI in a variety of ways when writing: improve grammar, correct typos, better organize ideas/concepts/sentence structure/sentences, and dozens of other “how applications (as opposed to “what”).
It’s not like people feel the need to explain that they used a spellchecker or thesaurus or googled the correct use of an idiom, etc.
There seems to be a general need for some people to dunk on valuable AI use by refusing to acknowledge that there are a many ways to use a tool. (Similar story on using AI for coding.)
Echoing a comment from above, why would I care whether a sentence was formulated by AI or John or a ghostwriter or John who asked Jane for feedback before rewriting? I care about the content. If I don’t like the way it’s written or if I’m irked by how it is written (ooh, an emdash — how embarrassing!) then I don’t need to read it.
Personally, I’m much more annoyed when I click on an article that sounds interesting, and the author tries to show off their penmanship by starting with five pages of “a history of X” or a tangential but redundant personal story before getting to the point. IMHO most non-fiction writing on the web could be accomplished in bullets. But again, that’s just my very personal preference…
The problem lies with people trying to claim credit without doing the work: writing. AI is a fantastic tool that catches flow errors, grammar problems and punctuation misuse, just like a copywriter. But copywriters don't get bylines.
My line is clear, if you use copy paste the AI output that's not your writing. I am okay with AI collaboration - it detects the errors, you decide what to do with them.
I want to read Ray Bradbury and Jack Vance, not Claude's output based on a prompt from a barely literate would-be.
I want to read code by Abrash, Peyton Jones and Karpathy, not Claude's output based on a prompt from a third rater.
If you send me AI generated writing, I will have my AI agent read it and respond to it.
Meanwhile I will use my limited human time to engage with humans and human created content.
Yeah, cool. The only way to get past resume filters now is to have AI write your CV and cover letter. TAs in school will grade you higher on your papers if you use AI so your papers sound like the median of all academic papers - you get down graded if it is "in your own voice".
So, I agree with the moral stance of the article, and I personally take all the Ls from all the CV rejection, and the lower grades because I write the paper myself. Just realize that you are choosing life on hard mode for negative societal and "dominance hierarchy" benefit.
> If AI deeply collaborates with you to write something, why am I saying you shouldn’t say you used AI? Because all I have is your word for it that you did any work at all.
If the author of this write up actually used AI for writing he would have way more than just word. Because you can definitely tell AI output that somebody put no effort into from output that somebody put in a ton of effort into.
It can be as much of a difference as between artistic photograph and a photo from a photo-trap installed in the forest or from a speed camera.
This is a very tiring article. I follow the author on LinkedIn. Their comments are always along the same lines, containing complex criticisms. I'd suggest they use artificial intelligence to summarize exactly what they mean in a shorter way.
basically disclosed public ai undisclosed private ai this only works, any thing public should be disclosed you can do anything when you are working locally as you know but it should be explicitly discloses as soon as it goes public.
If an LLM is used in the drafting of an article, this should, at least, be disclosed, preferably at the beginning of the article. For example, I recently came across this article ( https://thedispatch.com/article/affordability-crisis-healthc... ). The LLM voice was suppressed well enough until this inane passage:
"One number. Four completely different stories. The number is engineered to include all of them, because including all of them is what produces the 49 percent."
I decided to fact-check a statement ("CNN’s May 2026 survey found the share of Americans spontaneously naming gas prices as their top economic problem rose from 5 percent to 23 percent in a single year, with food costs cited almost as often") and it was incorrect (food costs were in fact cited more often than gas prices). Since the first thing I checked was wrong, I decided it wasn't worth my time reading the rest of the article. It was, as they say these days, slop.
It felt like a little bit of my time had been stolen. If a disclosure had been at the top, it would have been more of a caveat emptor situation.
When I write something heavily edited by AI - I mention that I use AI assistance (not AI led thinking). I will probably remove that because the perception is quite different. Its like applying one applying to an engineering job but write "a pychic, a medium" in a corner of their resume.
It is very common to see that any interesting thought gets immediately tagged like AI slop and the real AI slop wins. Try an A/B test and you shall see that AI actually wins because of the people who hate AI. Most people cannot distinguish between a human and a AI written post and yet those same people want to be judgemental. And the people who are against AI and say "its just the next token generator and I don't use it" and yet use autocomplete on their mobiles are just duplicit. And yes AI is the next-token-generator, we have no proof that most humans were not brainwashed to become the same.
I don’t use autocomplete, either. But if I did that would not be hypocritical. Autocomplete does not operate on the level of key ideas.
The “humans are just as bad” argument holds no water. Humans have many infirmities, but you can form relationships of trust with people who earn trust and deserve it. You can hold people accountable, personally and publicly. With the exception of rare criminals and the severely mentally ill, you understand people and you can work with them.
Anyway, if you hire someone to pretend to be you, that’s fraud. That’s being a scammer. Don’t do that. For the same reason, don’t let AI write in your name.
Or if you do, remember that I warned you how your reputation would collapse and people would stop taking your work seriously.
I did not say “humans are just as bad.” That is your assumption. I didn’t even say AI is bad. I use AI quite a lot.
> My policy is that I never let AI draft anything for me that has my name on it. Not one sentence. Nothing. Ever.
> If AI deeply collaborates with you to write something, why am I saying you shouldn’t say you used AI? Because all I have is your word for it that you did any work at all.
So using author's logic, I should not trust them when they say they never use AI for writing, because all we have is their word.
> “I’m a skilled liar. I frequently tell lies. But don’t worry, I wouldn’t lie to you!”
Interesting how saying you used any amount of AI instantly labels you as "a skilled liar" to the author.
The conclusion conflicts oddly with the author's arguments and interests. Attributing LLM usage would actually help the author avoid articles even touched by LLMs, but they indirectly admit being haphazardly dismissive.
Their arguments are mostly addressed by proper, clear attribution. "My sister helped with my homework essay" deserves distrust withour further clarification.
Comparing LLM usage to lying is a fun perspective, but most of the lying happens in attribution. Their moral against lying also seems silly.
I would never use AI for something where I need my own voice, say a blog post or a personal letter.
But I'm not ashamed to say that I used it last week in a chat conversation with a recruiter to turn this:
into this: I'm not ashamed, I think I'm right, and I'll do it again. This recruiter didn't deserve my authentic voice or my personal toil, not for this task.If it makes James Bach think I'm a liar, that's a price I'm willing to pay.
What was the value-add of AI here? Some modicum of undeserved politeness instead of the curt bullet points you prompted with? Or an intentional “fuck you” by sending something sloppy with AI tells?
Your use of the phrase “undeserved politeness” suggests to me that maybe you aren't someone I should look to for advice on how to behave.
That's probably true, but to be clear, I'm not communicating my own values here. I'm trying to understand your rationale.
>This recruiter didn't deserve my authentic voice or my personal toil
Yet they deserve inauthentic politeness from a chatbot? It just sounds like "fuck you" with more steps.
Not from the chatbot. From me. I'm the one who sent the message.
And it wasn't inauthentic. I wanted to be polite and inoffensive, but I didn't know how.
It definitely reads as a 'fuck you' to me. Is there a group of people that responds well to that last sentence?
Perhaps I'm wrong, but yes, I believe there is. Your own personal preferences are not universal.
You need AI to write 2 sentences?
Two sentences in recruiter register, yes. I'm really bad at it and I do need help.
So maybe a call is in fact better than an email?
As I mentioned, I'm hard of hearing and phone calls are difficult for me.
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It’s not that you are a liar, it’s that I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you are. Not just me, but also many other people will automatically discount whatever you say when they suspect they are talking to something not-you that bears your name.
Maybe it’s not your goal to be seriously? But if it is…
Hear hear..
If one uses the first person in one’s writing, it follows that the words are their own.
Anything else is disingenuous.
ghostwriter says not to use ghostwriter
more at 11
AI could have helped the author write what he's trying to say in one three word sentence: don't use AI.
Because in his view, if you use AI and don't disclose it, you're a liar. And if you use AI and disclose it, he won't trust you anyway.
It’s a perfectly reasonable position, though that may be because I share it.
If you’ve “written” something with AI, I have idea if you even read it, thus I have no idea if it even really reflects your thoughts. And I don’t care what a computer has to say, I care what a human has to say.
I fully agree with this.
The problem we have now is determining if the person actually wrote it. It suddenly got a lot easier for people to get someone else to generate text. And there are a lot more lazy humans than skilled writers.
That's an argument against people actng lszy, not against them using ai.
> If you’ve “written” something with AI, I have idea if you even read it, thus I have no idea if it even really reflects your thoughts. And I don’t care what a computer has to say, I care what a human has to say.
At a more fundamental level, if AI generated it then I have no trust it is actually true or reflects facts or matches reality. It's insulting to throw AI slop at us because you expect us to read something you didn't bothered to write or perhaps even read. The text is probably all wrong with a veneer of well sounding verbiage, and potentially is created to drive engagement instead of actually communicating useful information.
And the great gatsby can be summarized as “rich guy throws parties and then dies” - but sometimes saying something slowly is the point. Sometimes doing something slowly is the point too.
I don't think this is accurate. The key sentence is "don’t use AI to write things for you that you present as your own work". This leaves many other ways to use AI.
I've put that sentence in the title above because (per https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) it seems less misleading.
If you are serious, then AI has already begin to rot your brain.
My post was much more than saying “don’t use AI.”
I use AI. I even use AI adjacent to my writing. But with me, you always know that my written words are directly from me. They sound like me. I pretty much write how I talk, albeit more grammatically.
My post was about why you are taking a big risk with your reputation/brand if you let AI draft your written communication on your behalf.
> If you are serious, then AI has already begin to rot your brain.
First, it's not a good look to start off your rebuttal with an ad hominem. Based on the high standards you speak to in your post, and your concern about reputations, I would have expected more.
> I use AI. I even use AI adjacent to my writing. But with me, you always know that my written words are directly from me. They sound like me. I pretty much write how I talk, albeit more grammatically.
To play the role of cynic, what does "AI adjacent to my writing" even mean? You wrote in your post:
> If AI deeply collaborates with you to write something, why am I saying you shouldn’t say you used AI? Because all I have is your word for it that you did any work at all.
Who decides if your "adjacent" use of AI was deep or meaningful? You wrote:
> Unless I know exactly how you did that work– which would have to have been from personal observation– I can’t know the truth.
You're admitting that you use AI but only "adjacent to [your] writing". Even if you explain what that means, how can I trust you? I wasn't there to personally observe how you used AI.
If you consult with AI in any fashion to flesh out an idea, test your arguments, etc., someone with an even more extreme position could say, "Well, even if he wrote the words, AI must have influenced his writing in some way, perhaps even unconsciously, and therefore everything he wrote is tainted."
It's not a good look to start a comment with any variation of "you're being rude," either. So I guess both of us are prickly?
You misunderstood my blog post in an odd way that's hard for me to account for unless you just didn't read carefully. Hence, my annoyed quip.
I wrote in my policy, referred to in the post, that I never have AI draft anything for me. But I was quite explicit that I may use AI to aid my research in various ways-- just as I use Google search and other tools. I might create a monte carlo simulation to test my understanding of probability before making a bold pronouncement about statistical matter, too.
So, what I mean by adjacent is "next to" but not "on top of" or "inside." That's what most people mean by adjacent. I don't have AI draft any text for me. I type it all myself. I choose the words and sentence forms and rhetorical structure and overall strategy myself. That's how you know it's me and not some AI masquerading as me.
> I don't have AI draft any text for me. I type it all myself. I choose the words and sentence forms and rhetorical structure and overall strategy myself. That's how you know it's me and not some AI masquerading as me.
Let's walk through this very carefully.
Your post states:
> If AI deeply collaborates with you to write something, why am I saying you shouldn’t say you used AI? Because all I have is your word for it that you did any work at all. Unless I know exactly how you did that work– which would have to have been from personal observation– I can’t know the truth.
Now let's look at your policy, which states:
> I allow myself to use AI to help develop or critique ideas or to critique text. I hate to be wrong. If AI can help me be less wrong, I welcome it. Although I always start with my own ideas, I might ask AI to challenge those ideas, or independently research the topic. I would then look over its work and decide if I want to cover a new topic or angle that the AI may have indicated.
> I might also ask AI to review the final text and spot typos or sloppy writing. In other words, I can use AI the same way I would let a human colleague help me write a piece for which I would nevertheless declare myself sole author.
Do you not see the problem here? You admit that you use AI as a stand-in for a human editor. You admit that you use AI to "help develop or critique ideas or to critique text". You admit that you use AI to do research. You even admit that this process might lead you to decide "to cover a new topic or angle that the AI may have indicated."
Do you not believe that some of this falls afoul of your own standard ("if AI deeply collaborates with you to write something...")? If you don't, please explain why you believe AI helping you develop and critique your ideas and text is not "deep" collaboration. And please explain how anyone reading your work, without the "personal observation" you referred to in your post, would know how much influence your use of AI had on the words you wrote.
> First, it's not a good look to start off your rebuttal with an ad hominem. Based on the high standards you speak to in your post, and your concern about reputations, I would have expected more.
This is such a lazy and tired way of talking around someone. You started off with a rude, dismissive statement which was intended to cause offense. Now that offense was taken and returned, you’re playing the “you aren’t being polite enough” game.
It’s transparent, and you are not entitled to politeness.
That summary makes the point but doesn’t communicate the meaning
You're right, but I don't think there's anything particularly insightful about the author's perspective.
People are allowed to set their expectations/standards but in 2026 taking the position that use of AI is lying (when not disclosed) and trust destroying (when disclosed) is basically going to set you up for a lot of disappointment. It's just unrealistic.
For better or worse, AI is being used everywhere and it's harder and harder to spot, especially when the use is "thoughtful". Your only real defense is to think critically about the content you're consuming to determine whether it's accurate and has value.
> it's harder and harder to spot, especially when the use is "thoughtful".
It's not, only suckers think otherwise. The more you consume, the easier it gets to spot them, and also you get bored of it quicker. Which is fine for an actual tool.
IMO: if you think it's problematic if people could spot AI tool marks, you're not actually viewing or using AI as a tool. Rocket scientists aren't ashamed of using high end 5-axis CNC or SLS laser metal 3D printers to make rocket engines. Good machinists can tell how they were made, and that should mostly inspire confidence. If someone thinks the tool marks for a specific type of a tool needs to be hidden for the artifacts to be trusted, there has to be something wrong somewhere with the tool or how it's used, or both. Likely both.
Anyone looking at a Boeing 787 can tell that it flies on a pair of turbofan engines, and it's cool. Most people looking at AI images can tell it's generated using AI, and some can even identify models used, and that is NOT cool. That should be a strong enough sign that something is wrong with AI.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48609233
This was on the front page for a while yesterday. A decent amount of discussion. I'm quite sure this was produced using AI.
I was the only person who mentioned it.
AI is really easy to spot if it's being used to do all the work. It's less easy to spot when it's being used as a starting point, for editorial passes, concept development, argument refinement, etc.
> People are allowed to set their expectations/standards but in 2026 taking the position that use of AI is lying (when not disclosed) and trust destroying (when disclosed) is basically going to set you up for a lot of disappointment. It's just unrealistic.
Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.
Or you could engage with content critically, understanding that in this day and age, you can't be 100% sure of its provenance. Decide whether it's accurate, insightful, worth thinking about and researching further, etc. based on its substance, not who you think produced it and how.
You are asking many readers to do substantial amount of work for something nobody potentially put any effort into. This is the fundamental imbalance. Much like answering unknown numbers, reading articles from new sources has become a time wasting trap.
It is absolutely possible to produce an insightful article using AI. But it intakes skill and dedication few people have.
> You are asking many readers to do substantial amount of work for something nobody potentially put any effort into. This is the fundamental imbalance. Much like answering unknown numbers, reading articles from new sources has become a time wasting trap.
But AI is only the latest continuation of what you're describing. The internet has been full of slop (clickbait, SEO-bait, etc.) and propaganda/disinformation for many years before AI was even a thing. Social media gave every person on the planet with a heartbeat and internet connection a publishing platform over a decade ago.
The only realistic approach for dealing with this is to exercise critical thought when you consume content. And if the massive volume of content we're flooded with is problematic, narrow the sources from which you consume content and consume less of it. Get off social media. Disavow YouTube. Don't doom scroll the news. And so on.
I don't see this article as inconsistent with exercising critical thought. In a sense, this policy the author is describing is itself an exercise of critical thought. And it's one way of narrowing the sources from which they consume content. Exercising critical thought involves noticing patterns and developing heuristics and rubrics to judge things. That's entirely compatible with what the article describes.
Saying "if you use AI and don't tell me, you're a liar and if you use AI and tell me, I won't trust anything you write" is not critical thought. It's a sledgehammer filter and basically impossible to apply because there is virtually no way in 2026 to identify the provenance of any content you consume.
The likelihood that the author has consumed and trusted content that was produced using AI in some form, and not even realized it, is close to 100%. It's literally everywhere these days, and not everyone using it is using it to do all the work. But it leaves little hints that it was involved.
There are frequently posts that hit the front page of HN that have numerous AI fingerprints that produce discussion devoid of any comments questioning whether they were produced using AI. And HNers are probably one of the groups more likely than the general population to be able to identify AI content.
Ugh that sounds like a lot of work. Are you sure we can't just throw shallow dismissals around and feel smug about it, rather than interacting with the contents of what something is saying?
> Ugh that sounds like a lot of work.
Isn't that, ironically, exactly the sentiment that motivates people to use AI to produce content?
I think your comment hints at the reality: we're all just increasingly lazy. We want to minimize how much time and effort it takes to produce content, and at the same time we want to minimize how much time and effort it takes to engage with it.
It's a vicious cycle.
> Decide whether it's accurate, insightful, worth thinking about and researching further, etc. based on its substance
This is the part the original human poster is assumed to have screened as a first step, not the audience, particularly if the audience is unfamiliar with the subject (such as a guide, etc).
I literally came across a guide online from a user who wasn't a spammer, who disclaimed they haven't even read the very guide they posted as an article on their website, as it was LLM generated. At least that user put up a disclaimer but why would I trust such a guide, given my and others' extremely inconsistent experience with the veracity of LLM output and as someone coming to the guide to learn (ie: not a domain expert)? Overwhelmingly other users don't put up such disclaimers so we don't even get to know whether they've vetted anything.
Trust is the key thing. To continually erode reader trust means you're putting the burden at every step on the reader. Sure, one should always apply critical thinking to even human output but there is an implicit, baseline assumption that with human output they're at least familiar with what they've output (whether they're lying or telling the truth or ignorant but honest). LLMs meanwhile handle ground truths in a flaky way, such as when they'll hallucinate quotes from even articles they claim to have read and cited. And the most common models users are using are the cheapest/free ones anyway, only compounding the accuracy issues.
Imagine you went to a library assuming authors, publishers and library staff have done some minimum due diligence only to find the library is being replaced rapidly with books that no one in the chain has read.
No one can be a domain expert in every single thing they encounter, which is why we place trust in others to varying degrees to fill in the gaps based on their experience and knowledge, even if you're a dyed in the wool skeptic. When increasingly what we encounter isn't being vetted as a basic first step then it's a waste of time and rude to the audience, which only decreases peoples' tolerance for bullshit and increases cynicism (which we could use less of).
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Likely will be in for a life of much dissatisfaction.