My point is that there's nothing to be written there "instead", it just is not needed text that is added to make the text longer, typical of AI writing that parrots the same points over and over to make up for word count.
Here's another example from the blog:
> Here is something that gets lost in all the excitement about AI productivity: most software engineers became engineers because they love writing code.
> Not managing code. Not reviewing code. Not supervising systems that produce code. Writing it. The act of thinking through a problem, designing a solution, and expressing it precisely in a language that makes a machine do exactly what you intended. That is what drew most of us to this profession. It is a creative act, a form of craftsmanship, and for many engineers, the most satisfying part of their day.
can just be:
> Most software engineers became engineers because they love writing code. It is a creative act, a form of craftsmanship, and for many engineers, the most satisfying part of their day.
Clarity is something that is taught in every writing class but AI generated text always seems to have this weird cadance as follows: The sound is loud. Not a whimper, not a roar, a simple sound that is very loud. And that's why... blah blah blah.
You have to care about your readers if you're writing something seriously. Throwing just a bunch of text that all mean the same thing in your writing is one of the bigger sins you can do, and that's why most people hate reading AI writing.
The part you'd like to remove ("Not managing code...") may be not required to convey the objective meaning of the sentence, but humans have emotions, too. I could have written stuff like that. To build up a bigger emotional picture.
> The act of thinking through a problem, designing a solution, and expressing it precisely in a language that makes a machine do exactly what you intended.
This sentence may not be relevant for whatever you experience to be the relevant message of the text. But it still says something the remaining paragraph does not. And also something I can relate to.
Also, as LLMs are statistical models, one has to assume that they write like this because their training data tells them to. Because humans write like this. Not when they do professional writing maybe, but when they just ramble. Not all blogs are written by professionals. I'd say most aren't. LLM training data consists mostly of humans rambling.
I also sometimes write long comments on the internet. And while I have no example to check, I feel like I do write such sentences, expanding on details to express more emotional context. Because I'm not a robot and I like writing a lot. I think it's a perfectly human thing to do. I find it sad that "writing more than absolutely needed" is now regarded as a sign of AI writing.
> Because humans write like this. Not when they do professional writing maybe, but when they just ramble.
I keep seeing this assertion and I keep responding "Please, point to the volume of writing with this specific cadence that has a date prior to 2024" and I keep getting... crickets!
You're asserting that this is a common way for humans to write, correct? Should be pretty easy, then, to find a large volume of examples.
Like I said: I think I write like this on some occasions.
I wouldn't know how I would search for examples. I guess you'd have to search old reddit comment threads or something. But yeah, I have no motivation to do that, tbh.
It could be that it's hard to find examples because they are scattered about in countless comment threads and single posts on countless platforms. Things I rarely keep links to, things nobody indexed on a large scale before LLMs.
It may be that it wasn't a very popular style of writing, because most people don't like writing a lot and keep their texts on the internet short. LLMs exaggerate this style because they generate exaggerative amounts of text in general. The style wasn't particularly annoying in the past because it wasn't that popular. It's annoying now because LLMs flood the internet with it.
The quoted example in particular didn't appear uncanny to me. And it still doesn't. I can see myself writing like that.
I'm sorry I have no example for you. But I'm genuinely unsure whether I'm oblivious to the patterns others see, or whether others see patterns because they want to see them.
One of the good book about writing I read was William Zinsser's "On Writing Well". Striving for simplicity and avoiding clutter was the two first principles described in the book. AI writing feels more like ramblings than communication.
There's an art to it. Most human attempts, and every LLM attempt I've ever seen, are awful, sometimes bordering on unreadable, but, as you say, there are a relatively small number of authors who do it well. That doesn't mean that most people should do it.
I'm a French speaker and florid and elaborate writing is something I've grown up with. It can be difficult if you don't know the word or are not used to the style, but it's not boring. AI writing is just repetitive.
When I've used AI for proofreading the suggestions it makes to me is to cut a lot and shorten it. It also gives me examples, never with my voice or style though.
ASML Holding is dominating the chip technology with their machines. It's not the lack of invention or intellectual capability that holds Europe back from the digital industry, it's the lack of willing long term European invenstors. If you want to scale your digital tech startup in Europe the most viable way is to look to the US for investors.
I think that it would require there to be a European chip demand. Today that demand is almost entirely for cars, so we only get mediocre car infotainment chips (+ a few other similar niches). There was more hope 20 years ago, when there were widely successful European mobile phone makers.
reply