[cafebeen]

Yes, I had a related experience of reading a book and observing what I thought were claude-isms, only to realize it was written in 2019. Some of the common tells are actually good writing practices, but I guess they are best in smaller doses.

[palmotea]

> Yes, I had a related experience of reading a book and observing what I thought were claude-isms, only to realize it was written in 2019. Some of the common tells are actually good writing practices, but I guess they are best in smaller doses.

The LLMs haven't invented anything. Every LLM-ism is some pre-existing and established word, metaphor, and or stylistic element mechanically overused until it becomes an instant cliche.

The other LLM-ism is vapid bullshit: meaningless crap that's kind of like those old hollywood facades: it appears to be a substantial building, but if you look a bit closer it's just a single wall propped up (https://www.ferrovial.com/blog/en/2018/03/the-fake-architect...).

[SoftTalker]

Sure, that's where the AI got them: the training data. These phrases and cliches were very prevalent especially in corporate "white papers" and memos and marketing materials. There was a time when "stove pipe" was a common one too, along with "silo."

But the LLMs really seem to fixate on using the same ones in the same places all the time. I guess that's because that's the highest probability construction.

[vidarh]

Consider each LLM as one personality. We're getting corporate bullshit from a large number of different personalities, so even when they are similar they are still filtered through many different lenses.

Most of us are only dealing with a handful of hyper-productive LLMs, so it makes sense that the LLM-ticks get old much quicker.

[sheept]

Even em dashes have been discouraged by some writers [0] before LLMs because they're easy to overuse.

[0]: https://slate.com/human-interest/2011/05/em-dashes-why-write...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

God help me if Claude starts using inline parentheticals, I might just have to take a vow of (online) silence.

[abustamam]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who (perhaps) overuses in-line parentheticals... sometimes to the point where I'd have parentheticals within parentheticals!

[tzs]

All it takes to get accused of being AI nowadays is to remember and use (1) what you were taught about composition in your high school English class, and (2) what you learned from "The Mac is Not a Typewriter" [1].

[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0201782634

[mohamedkoubaa]

This is exactly why humans invented the idea of things going in and out of style.

[_carbyau_]

It is one thing to be labelled as "old fashioned" but entirely another to be labelled as an LLM.

[nathias]

what do you mean, which tells are good writing practices?

as I see them they are all truly terrible even if authored by humans

[jambalaya8]

Actually, AI was learning these 'AI-isms' even back in 2017/2018 (probably even earlier). I think a lot of people who just jumped on the imaginary AI bandwagon more recently don't realise the mannerisms AIs are adopting are not really new. At some point the bleed between 'you' or 'you' and AI will just become so transparent it will be obliterated, more likely than not.

[schrodinger]

I believe you and OP are in agreement — they were saying that the 2019 book had them, therefore the terms _do_ predate AI. Your point that AI was being trained on material than is load-bearing (lol) but in agreement with OP, not contradictory.

Only mentioning because your "actually" may imply you thought you were disagreeing, when in fact it's one big happy family!

[stingraycharles]

What do you mean? AI is being trained on all data available, so obviously it’s being trained on data from 2017/2018 as well.

Or do you mean that the patterns that AI is showing today were already present in communication around that time?

That seems obvious as well, as AI has a lot of repetitive patterns that come from all kinds of periods, of which “load-bearing” is just one.

[jambalaya8]

Yes, I am saying the patterns were emergent already in 2017/2018.