> There were entire classes of Hacker News submissions that I refused to read the comments on. Including the comments about this article, should such comments ever materialize.
The author has made the correct call. There's a pretty deep irony that all the top-level comments at the time of this writing are about how the article is too long. It's quite clearly not trying to succinctly convince you of a point, it's meant to be a piece of genuinely human writing, and enjoyed (or not!) on the basis of that.
Author writes an interesting, nuanced, wide-reaching essay about AI and society, with a main theme being about AI and its impact on our humanity.
All other top level arguments offer AI summaries that miss all of the interesting, nuanced, wide-reaching topics about AI and its impact on our humanity, and complain it was too long to read.
Either they actually wrote all that on their own, or they had an LLM spew it. Either way, why? They had a valid point; you don't have to use LLMs to write your stuff. Why bury that point in this insane pile of verbiage?
But thanks for saving the rest of us. This is why I read the comments first.
Because it was, even if you disagree with it, beautifully written, emotionally resonant, full of funny jokes and cute stories and metaphors, and states well — and encapsulates — all of the nuances and sub-arguments of its side of the argument?
...because reading and writing well-written prose is meaningful and enjoyable?
It feels like half the people here do not read or write in their free time, which would be understandable if this were not primarily a site for software engineers who write (sorta) as a job
It is funny how that's basically one of the core points the article makes -- and in fact the article paints Hacker News commentors specifically as people who don't see that kind of inherent value in craft and artistry -- but the AI-generated summaries those people are relying on have missed it completely.
I actually disagreed with that particular point made in the article, because I don't really see myself as somebody who sees value in craft and artistry, I just want effective code that works (which imho LLMs cannot create).
But after reading this comment section... I mean if enjoying well written prose counts as enjoying craft and artistry I guess I do then? Damn.
> because reading and writing well-written prose is meaningful and enjoyable?
This is not prose, it is exposition. It is perfectly valid to critique any expository essay, especially one of this length, for its density (or lack thereof) of substantive information.
Sometimes writing can both contain information and be beautiful? This article is charming and thoughtful. Its style may not be for everyone, but for me it really hit, I am thoroughly enjoying reading it. Its style gives me no problem calling it prose.
A person writing an essay on their own site doesn't need to have the information density of bus timetable.
I somewhat disagree that this is not prose? This didn't seem like a purely expository piece. Like if it were just a straightforward technical piece than yeah its way to long, it could have been a few sentences.
But this seemed like it bridges the gap between prose and an expository essay -it was doing both.
> prose and an expository essay -it was doing both.
Putting prose in an essay means there are more valid criticisms of a piece of writing, not fewer. If somebody is breakdancing and reciting the periodic table at the same time it’s ok if somebody notices if they skipped the lanthanides and actinides.
I’m a fan of blending the two! It’s just really really hard to do both well at the same time. My most recent example is Malcolm Harris’ history of Palo Alto, it is incredibly well-done.
That’s kind of the point that I was making. When you mash the two together, both lenses are valid critiques.
It’s an exponentially more difficult way to accomplish either goal because one reader will see it and think “this is a sixteen thousand word essay that says very little” and another will see it and think “what a wonderful story” and there’s nobody to adjudicate who is correct.
Like I posted “this is sixteen thousand words about how the author doesn’t really use language models but might one day” and some folks’ rebuttal is that they enjoyed reading it. Those are two completely unrelated things! It’s like if folks saw the cover of The Hobbit and thought “Hell yeah!” and then when they read “there and back again” thought “whoever wrote that was being unnecessarily reductive”
>Either they actually wrote all that on their own, or they had an LLM spew it. Either way, why?
I mostly skimmed it. It’s entirely feasible that the author buried a confession about getting away with manslaughter or whatever that I missed somewhere in a few sentences in the middle of that novella though. It does begin with several paragraphs essentially telling you not to read the post and has a lot of completely unnecessary exposition (for example the section on Luddites)
Edit: I want to point out that I went over the post with my own eyeballs and brain
This was so wordy I had to ask an LLM to tell me what the point is.
So you don't have to:
"you don’t have to embrace a trend, tool, or narrative simply because others say you should — especially if it doesn’t resonate with you or align with your values"
An important new twist to add to the great AI versus NO AI discussion.
Most people simply do not have the patience to spend 30 minutes reading something anymore. It's why magazines like The New Yorker are on life support. So, yes. "Had to."
> There were entire classes of Hacker News submissions that I refused to read the comments on. Including the comments about this article, should such comments ever materialize.
The author has made the correct call. There's a pretty deep irony that all the top-level comments at the time of this writing are about how the article is too long. It's quite clearly not trying to succinctly convince you of a point, it's meant to be a piece of genuinely human writing, and enjoyed (or not!) on the basis of that.
Author writes an interesting, nuanced, wide-reaching essay about AI and society, with a main theme being about AI and its impact on our humanity.
All other top level arguments offer AI summaries that miss all of the interesting, nuanced, wide-reaching topics about AI and its impact on our humanity, and complain it was too long to read.
Truly a gem of irony.
I for one enjoyed this very long essay. It should've been a lot shorter, but you also didn't have to read it, it says right there in the title :)
"If I cared as much as I want you to, I'd have written a shorter article"
Tl;dr:
Over sixteen thousand words about how the author doesn’t really use language models very much but might in the future
Bully for them I guess. Thanks for finishing that.
Either they actually wrote all that on their own, or they had an LLM spew it. Either way, why? They had a valid point; you don't have to use LLMs to write your stuff. Why bury that point in this insane pile of verbiage?
But thanks for saving the rest of us. This is why I read the comments first.
Because it was, even if you disagree with it, beautifully written, emotionally resonant, full of funny jokes and cute stories and metaphors, and states well — and encapsulates — all of the nuances and sub-arguments of its side of the argument?
...because reading and writing well-written prose is meaningful and enjoyable?
It feels like half the people here do not read or write in their free time, which would be understandable if this were not primarily a site for software engineers who write (sorta) as a job
It is funny how that's basically one of the core points the article makes -- and in fact the article paints Hacker News commentors specifically as people who don't see that kind of inherent value in craft and artistry -- but the AI-generated summaries those people are relying on have missed it completely.
I actually disagreed with that particular point made in the article, because I don't really see myself as somebody who sees value in craft and artistry, I just want effective code that works (which imho LLMs cannot create).
But after reading this comment section... I mean if enjoying well written prose counts as enjoying craft and artistry I guess I do then? Damn.
> because reading and writing well-written prose is meaningful and enjoyable?
This is not prose, it is exposition. It is perfectly valid to critique any expository essay, especially one of this length, for its density (or lack thereof) of substantive information.
Sometimes writing can both contain information and be beautiful? This article is charming and thoughtful. Its style may not be for everyone, but for me it really hit, I am thoroughly enjoying reading it. Its style gives me no problem calling it prose.
A person writing an essay on their own site doesn't need to have the information density of bus timetable.
I somewhat disagree that this is not prose? This didn't seem like a purely expository piece. Like if it were just a straightforward technical piece than yeah its way to long, it could have been a few sentences.
But this seemed like it bridges the gap between prose and an expository essay -it was doing both.
> prose and an expository essay -it was doing both.
Putting prose in an essay means there are more valid criticisms of a piece of writing, not fewer. If somebody is breakdancing and reciting the periodic table at the same time it’s ok if somebody notices if they skipped the lanthanides and actinides.
I’m a fan of blending the two! It’s just really really hard to do both well at the same time. My most recent example is Malcolm Harris’ history of Palo Alto, it is incredibly well-done.
Sure, but the specific critique that it is too verbose seems less valid if one of the primary purposes of the piece was to be prose.
That’s kind of the point that I was making. When you mash the two together, both lenses are valid critiques.
It’s an exponentially more difficult way to accomplish either goal because one reader will see it and think “this is a sixteen thousand word essay that says very little” and another will see it and think “what a wonderful story” and there’s nobody to adjudicate who is correct.
Like I posted “this is sixteen thousand words about how the author doesn’t really use language models but might one day” and some folks’ rebuttal is that they enjoyed reading it. Those are two completely unrelated things! It’s like if folks saw the cover of The Hobbit and thought “Hell yeah!” and then when they read “there and back again” thought “whoever wrote that was being unnecessarily reductive”
A tweet might have sufficed?
>Either they actually wrote all that on their own, or they had an LLM spew it. Either way, why?
I mostly skimmed it. It’s entirely feasible that the author buried a confession about getting away with manslaughter or whatever that I missed somewhere in a few sentences in the middle of that novella though. It does begin with several paragraphs essentially telling you not to read the post and has a lot of completely unnecessary exposition (for example the section on Luddites)
Edit: I want to point out that I went over the post with my own eyeballs and brain
This was so wordy I had to ask an LLM to tell me what the point is.
So you don't have to:
"you don’t have to embrace a trend, tool, or narrative simply because others say you should — especially if it doesn’t resonate with you or align with your values"
An important new twist to add to the great AI versus NO AI discussion.
> This was so wordy I had to ask an LLM to tell me what the point is.
Every time I check this comment section, this sentence jumps out at me again. You "had to" ask an LLM. You "had to".
Most people simply do not have the patience to spend 30 minutes reading something anymore. It's why magazines like The New Yorker are on life support. So, yes. "Had to."
I should point out that simply not reading a blog post that you're not interested in reading is also an option...
I noped out of this article because it was using 10 paragraphs to say nothing.
Genuine human writing can be great, this isnt it.
What if, and hear me out here, "You don't have to"
Why do Americans like you love bragging about their own stupidity?
Exceptionalism says we have best of everything, including idiots.
Because we went through so many years of school for it