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barrkel • yesterday at 5:02 PM • 3 replies • view on HN

Have you not seen it any time you put any substantial bit of your own writing through an LLM, for advice?

I disagree pretty strongly with most of what an LLM suggests by way of rewriting. They're absolutely appalling writers. If you're looking for something beyond corporate safespeak or stylistic pastiche, they drain the blood out of everything.

The skin of their prose lacks the luminous translucency, the subsurface scattering, that separates the dead from the living.

Replies

simonw • yesterday at 7:01 PM

The prompt I use for proof-reading has worked great for me so far:

  You are a proof reader for posts
  about to be published.

  1. Identify for spelling mistakes
  and typos
  2. Identify grammar mistakes
  3. Watch out for repeated terms like
  "It was interesting that X, and it
  was interesting that Y"
  4. Spot any logical errors or
  factual mistakes
  5. Highlight weak arguments that
  could be strengthened
  6. Make sure there are no empty or
  placeholder links
matwood • yesterday at 6:02 PM

> If you're looking for something beyond corporate safespeak

AI has been great for removing this stress. "Tell Joe no f'n way" in a professional tone and I can move on with my day.

➕ show 2 replies
Terretta • yesterday at 6:26 PM

> If you're looking for something beyond corporate safespeak or stylistic pastiche, they drain the blood out of everything.

Strong agree, which is why I disagree with this OP point:

“Stage 2: Lexical flattening. Domain-specific jargon and high-precision technical terms are sacrificed for "accessibility." The model performs a statistical substitution, replacing a 1-of-10,000 token with a 1-of-100 synonym, effectively diluting the semantic density and specific gravity of the argument.”

I see enough jargon in everyday business email that in the office zero-shot LLM unspoolings can feel refreshing.

I have "avoid jargon and buzzwords" as one of very tiny tuners in my LLM prefs. I've found LLMs can shed corporate safespeak, or even add a touch of sparkle back to a corporate memo.

Otherwise very bright writers have been "polished" to remove all interestingness by pre-LLM corporate homogenization. Give them a prompt to yell at them for using 1-in-10 words instead of 1-in-10,000 "perplexity" and they can tune themselves back to conveying more with the same word count. Results… scintillate.