Hacker News Reader

Comment by Planktonne | Hacker News Reader

I think you're conflating a couple of different things here.

1. I do disagree with your position in both the prompt and the output; I don't think you're correct. That doesn't mean I don't think you're worth talking to.

2. I do think the output was thoughtless; there is thought evident in the prompt, but then you passed it through a blandifying filter that took it out. You made your contribution less valuable and less valid, removing intention. That's thoughtless.

You do not need a filter; it does not make your writing better, it makes it more pallid.

View on HN

I had 3 main positions - are you disagreeing with them all? You have not directly engaged with any of them.

  1) Content shouldn't be judged solely on the use of an LLM.
  2) There is a distinction between slop and assisted authorship.
  3) LLMs can be valuable accessibility tools.

You are now saying that the OUTPUT was thoughtless, whereas before you said that "I" had not put meaningful thought into it. Those are different claims.

As for the output, I regenerated it until I was happy that it communicated my position effectively. That in itself requires both thought and intention.

You may prefer my unedited prose, but your preference doesn't make either my input or my editorial choices thoughtless.

> are you disagreeing with them all

Yes. I think an LLM can be useful for trivial or functional tasks, but for expressing complex positions, it's worse than useless. It's absolutely valid to dismiss LLM-generated prose, and people who who think they're doing 'assisted authorship' tend to be mistaken.

I'm not saying you are incapable of thought; I'm saying that you've abdicated that by transmitting through an LLM.

> Yes

Well you are of course entitled to disagree.

> I'm not saying you are incapable of thought; I'm saying that you've abdicated that by transmitting through an LLM.

What you actually said was that I "didn't put any meaningful thought into it". Thats the INPUT, not OUTPUT. Anyway. I think we're as far as we are going to get with this "discussion". Have a good evening!

> What you actually said was that I "didn't put any meaningful thought into it".

What he literally said was [0][1]

  You submitted thoughtless pap; of course it didn't get any traction.
  ...
  > What was thoughtless about it?
  
  You didn't put any meaningful thought into it.

> Thats the INPUT, not OUTPUT.

You didn't submit the input, you submitted the output. In actual fact, Planktonne asserted that the input that you did not publish would have been much more strongly preferred to the output that you did publish: [2]

  I would a thousand times rather read your stream of consciousness, even though I disagree with it, than the bland pulp of the LLM output. In every way that matters, it's stronger and communicating far more.

[0] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337154>

[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337218>

[2] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49338082>

> You didn't submit the input, you submitted the output

I submit BOTH the input AND the output - that was the ENTIRE point of the post.

Honestly, I beat myself up for years over having a reading disability - whereas it’s evident some of you don’t even make the effort to read yet still feel they have something to say.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com