I don't really think that good writing and LLM writing looks all that similar. It's not always easy to spot (and maybe HN users aren't always doing a great job at it), but even the best LLM output tends to have an "LLM smell" to it that's hard to avoid.

Like, sure, LLM writing is almost always grammatically correct, spelled correctly, formatted correctly, etc., which tends to be true of good writing. But there's a certain style that it just can't get away from. It's not just the em-dashes, the semi-colons, or the bulleted lists. It's the short, punchy sentences, with few-to-no asides or digressions. Often using idiom, but only in a stale, trite, and homogenized manner. Real humans, are each different -- which lends a certain unpredictability to our writing, even if trying to write to a semi-formal standard, the way "good" writers often do -- but LLMs are all so painfully the same, and the output shows it.

> My only caution is that good writers and LLMs look very similar, because LLMs were trained on a corpus of good writers.

People moving to careless writing for authenticity while good writing will be considered AI? funny. We want authentic human thought but can only detect human style.

This reddit thread that came out today is the perfect inversion of the discussion here: https://old.reddit.com/r/ChatGPTPromptGenius/comments/1rr19k...

Good writers are often good in recognizably unique ways. To the extent that LLMs produce “good writing,” which I happen to think they mostly do, they tend to overuse specific devices which give their writing a quality that most people are already sick of.

They look similar. In my experience, they do not read similar at all. You have to pay attention and actually try to appreciate what you're reading. Then, if you try and fail, it might not be your fault.

I use dash a lot while people rather usually use and are used to seeing a hyphen. I was called out on a certain app "wtf dude.. the least u can do is nt use ai". Well, the person was using shorthand and textpeak a lot, so it was already getting nauseating for me, so this outburst helped me eject, but not before I politely asked why they thought so and dash was the trigger along with "all da time crct grmr and spelling". Also "hu da hell writes dis long sentences". Guilty as charged.

> Good writers use semicolons and em-dashes

I use semicolons a lot. If this is the nouveau tell du jour for LLMs then I'm in trouble.

If you're looking for the odd visual artifact or textual tic then you're fighting a cat and mouse game that will change by the month. It's either easy to identify the soul of the human or it's not.

AI can make output seem very average or low effort as well if it sounds like everything else.

I find that most AI writing reads like ad copy to me. The presence of semicolons or em-dashes say nothing either way.

Some things to think about:

* A comment should be judged on its merits mostly, and if a comment seems to be substantive, interesting, or ask a thoughtful question, it should be acceptable. I think some LLM comments look superficially relevant, but a moment's thought can make me wonder if a comment actually added anything to the discussion, or did it sound like a rephrasing or generalization of a topic?

* Unfortunately for decent new users, account age is one metric on which to judge here.

* People who post here, should want to engage on a subject when they can, and disengage and be quiet when they can't. There is nothing wrong if you're not an expert on something, and it is not desired by the people here to have you alt-tab to an LLM to plug in extra perspective. We can all do that on our own.

>My only caution is that good writers and LLMs look very similar, because LLMs were trained on a corpus of good writers.

While that might be ideal, is that really the case with most LLM training data? Does the curation process weed out all the slop from bad writers?

Much like not dumping motor oil down the drain, it’s probably near impossible to catch skilled AI-users. I think we all want to have a nice space to chat, just like we don’t want a polluted planet, so we’ll just have to be on the honor system.

I don’t think there’s a lot to AI generated stuff on here that really bothered me to the point I wanted to call someone out.

Good writers use semicolons and em-dashes. Sometimes we used bulleted lists or Oxford commas.

- You seem to have a rather high opinion of your own writing :-)

- Why the mix of tense (use/used)?

- Oxford commas are a monstrosity

>(I've been accused multiple times of being an AI after writing long well written comments 100% by hand)

Perhaps always be sure to say something especially timely, original or insightful that an LLM can't have come up with.