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by argee 4 days ago
What would you have done pre-LLM? Do that. It's better.

Because "English isn't my first language so i used AI to clean up the writing" translates to "I don't respect an English speaking audience." And if you know enough English to disagree with that translation, it just proves the point further.

2 comments

Without his effort to bring it into the english language in the best way he was able to, you wouldn't be able to criticize his effort in the first place.

I don't like the AI slang as you do, yet it enables us to communicate with the whole world without knowing the target language by heart.

A little ai disclaimer at the beginning would have aid in this situation, tho.

There's a difference between getting a tool to translate what you've written (a la Google translate), and getting an LLM to generate content. If you don't see that difference, we'll have to agree to disagree.
If your objection is to someone giving an LLM a few dot points asking it to turn them into an article, then that clearly isn't what happened here. The research idea seems novel, the author put a bit of work into exploring the idea, the conclusions are clearly the author's own based on what his exploration found. He then used an LLM to write up what he found because his native language isn't English.

I'm fine with that. Going by the comments here, most people are fine with that. Given the choice between LLM-generated text or not seeing these sorts of novel ideas from different parts of the world on HN, they take the former.

I don't think the HN guideline "Don't post generated text or AI-edited text" is going to age well. My guess is it's already broken more than it's observed. The next bit: "HN is for conversation between humans" will be ageless. The mistake they make is "AI-edited text" is often net positive when humans converse, particularly if they come from very different backgrounds (language or culture).

This isn't a poetry forum. Bad spelling, bad grammar, inappropriate metaphors are all very human - but they get in the way when humans are just trying to communicate rather than create written art. The rule "Don't post generated text or AI-edited text" looks to fall into the category "there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong".

The amount of unacknowledged privilege in this post is hard to bear.
+1

This anti LLM crusade on HN is driving me nuts. It means I have to view with showdead on, because otherwise I miss clear, insightful and consequently interesting posts because someone to an dislike to am em dash. Dead posts are so faint I often have to copy and paste them into a comment box to make them readable.

Everyone hates LLM generated "ideas". But LLM phrasing of a humans original ideas is a different thing. Not ideal perhaps, if the alternative is not to hear the ideas and opinions of different cultures and countries, I'll take it every time. For fucks sake, learn to tell the difference between the two - don't just moronically down vote because of LLM tells.

Don't be on HN then?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated

> Don't post generated text or AI-edited text. HN is for conversation between humans.

In this case it's about how you say it, not what. Which is also covered by the HN guidelines, btw.
Good thing we have you here to be a stellar role model based on how you responded.