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Comment by azangru | Hacker News Reader

Is it a style like his that LLMs have been copying lately?

"It was cold out, but none of us were cold."

"In that moment, there was nothing to do. Nothing to improve. Nothing to fix. It was perfect."

"We’ve all seen it. Clear as day, you can see the goal post at the top: self-actualization. LFG! It’s time to journal and 80/20 myself! Pass me a shaman and some modafinil. That’s the mission. That’s the point. Right? But hold on."

"Because at the end of the day—and at the end of a Montana night—the point was never yourself. It was never the pyramid. It was never the optimization. It was the people around the fire."

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First impression is that's really his writing. He's a professional writer. Thing is it's like trying to be a professional writer.

very different from actually good writing, as in literature. art.

Nothing against Mr. Ferris, just very clearly happen to come across these "i'm trying really hard at good writing" styles in influencer type blogs.

> First impression is that's really his writing. He's a professional writer. Thing is it's like trying to be a professional writer.

I am not suggesting that this isn't his writing.

What I was wondering was whether these are the elements of style that LLMs have picked up.

Doubtful that any one dude could influence the model to that extent, unless deliberately weighted. Then again i don't know what the hell i'm talking about.

From what i gather, openAi particular flavor of response is from reinforcement learning, these PMs are intentionally gamifying it. just today literally every reply was followed with "… want me to show you the one trick you can implement to avoid…"

was gross.

He’s been writing for decades now so that should be easy to verify. I’m sure LLMs are optimized for engaging online writing that’s easy to digest

When my head-voice read "But hold on", I literally heard in my head the "record scratch" associated with comedy movie trailers from the 1990s and 2000s.

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