alt Hacker NewsI don't know, to me your sentiment sounds a lot like how back in the day they used to say "you can't just use a calculator all the time, use your brain and show the work on pen and paper".
humans have been using tools to communicate since pre-history. language itself is one tool of communication invented to supersede body-language and grunting and noises. the thought and idea is theirs, it was communicated. Would it be that much different if they used a spellchecker extensively to edit their work?
I get why you're annoyed but is it really such a big deal? random people aren't to blame for whatever other annoyances "AI slop" has created.
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> the thought and idea is theirs, it was communicated
Are they? I don't know how much they used AI, the entire article could be written from a one sentence prompt and so I'd argue that the thoughts and ideas are not their own.
This isn't like using a spell checker, it's like using a ghost writer.
> language itself is one tool of communication invented to supersede body-language and grunting and noises
That's a pretty utilitarian view of language. How would it feel if everyone spoke and wrote like a PR representative? This is what an article written by an LLM is starting to sound like.
I'm even willing to argue that the way in which you convey your ideas is as important as the idea itself. Like we could all be eating soylent for our daily nutritional requirements but we don't. The taste of the food we eat is important. It's the same with writing for me
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Calculators have never been the medium in which we communicate our human experience and knowledge transfer. Calculators aren't part of the social fabric or culture. Very 2d extrapolation that somehow resulted in an alleged parallel. Language is woven deeply into civilization and our histories & been a part of our species literal survival against the most unforgiving odds/environments. Using what is effectively a ghost writer nukes trust. You cannot ascertain anything about the person behind the blog if it's clear they used AI to write it. And without that there's no way to infer expertise, rule out hallucinations, falsehoods presented as matter of fact, and the whole broad set of things LLM's get wrong because of their limitations as a technology. I have literally nothing to go off of that would prove this person knows what they are talking about. Why would anyone want to consume that?
Would it kill anyone at all to add a preamble that is forthcoming about using AI to write something? A chance to say these are my ideas and I've used claude to help me state it eloquently because <english is not my first language / i dont write well / claude said it better than i ever could> etc ? Not doing that, presenting as more capable/knowing than one probably is, is what destroys trust immediately the moment it's sniffed out that AI was used to write something.
It's irresponsible, a self-nerf, and it's annoying. Venn diagram there is basically a circle. We're all familiar with how vibe coding appears to weaken your ability to write code, like skipping the gym and expecting good muscle density. All I'm saying is people shouldn't be skipping the gym for literally communicating with each other because there's gonna be a lot of times in life where you're not gonna be able to whip out chat jippity to continue a real conversation with another person. Ceding that turf means you're willingly trading your ability to deal with real life scenarios with other human beings for short term gain. It's funny how the universe tends to find balance. Yeah, being well read and expressing ideas well is a skill, it takes work.