alt Hacker NewsAgreed! As i mentioned in the piece I don't think LLMs are very useful for original writing because instructing an agent to write anything from scratch inevitably takes more time than writing it yourself.
Most of the time I spend managing my inbox is not spent on original writing, however. It's spent on mundane tasks like filtering, prioritizing, scheduling back-and-forths, introductions etc. I think an agent could help me with a lot of that, and I dream of a world in which I can spend less time on email and finally be one of those "inbox zero" people.
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For the case of writing emails, I tend to agree though I think creative writing is an exception. Pairing with an LLM really helps overcome the blank page / writer's block problem because it's often easier to identify what you don't want and then revise all the flaws you see.
On that topic I’m the founder of inbox zero: https://getinboxzero.com
May help you get half way there
instructing an agent to write anything from scratch inevitably takes more time than writing it yourself
Even if I had the subject matter knowledge, it would take me much longer to write an article with the type of style and examples that I want.
(Because you said 'from scratch', I deliberately didn't choose an example that used web search or tools.)
The counter argument is some people are terrible at writing. Millions of people sit at the bottom of any given bell curve.
I’d never trust a summery from a current generation LLM for something as critical as my inbox. Some hypothetical drastically improved future AI, sure.