Comment by zdragnar
1 day ago
I heard the other day that LLMs won't replace writers, just mediocre writing.
On the one hand, I can see the point- you'll never get chatgpt to come up with something on par with the venerable Crafting Interpreters.
On the other hand, that means that all the hard-won lessons from writing poorly and improving with practice will be eliminated for most. When a computer can do something better than you right now, why bother trying to get better on your own? You never know if you'll end up surpassing it or not. Much easier to just put out mediocre crap and move on.
Which, I think, means that we will see fewer and fewer masters of crafts as more people are content with drudgery.
After all, it is cheaper and generally healthier and tastier to cook at home, yet for many people fast food or ordering out is a daily thing.
I have to disagree. My brother-in-law has started to use ChatGPT to punch up his personal letters and they’ve become excerpts from lesser 70s sitcoms. From actually personal and relevant to disturbingly soulless.
Right? If I could get the same output by just talking to AI myself, what's the point of the human connection? Be something, be someone. Be wrong or a little rude from time to time, it's still more genuine.
His last letter was an update on a serious health issue. I care. It's not supposed to be a yuck fest, especially inorganic AI sludge.
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Your whole point is disproven by woodworking as a craft, and many other crafts for that matter. There are still craftspeople doing good work with wood even though IKEA and such have captured the furniture industry.
There will still be fine programmers developing software by hand after AI is good enough for most.
> There will still be fine programmers developing software by hand after AI is good enough for most.
This fallacy seems to be brought up very frequently, that there are still blacksmiths; people who ride horses; people who use typewriters; even people who use fountain pens, but they don't really exist in any practical or economical sense outside of 10 years ago Portland, OR.
No technological advancement that I'm aware of completely eliminates one's ability to pursue a discipline as a hobbyist or as a niche for rich people. It's rarely impossible, but I don't think that's ever anyone's point. Sometimes they even make a comeback, like vinyl records.
The scope of the topic seems to be what the usual one is, which is the chain of incentives that enable the pursuit of something as a persuasive exchange of value, particularly that of a market that needs a certain amount of volume and doesn't have shady protectionism working for it like standard textbooks.
With writing, like with other liberal arts, it's far from a new target of parental scrutiny, and it's my impression that those disciplines have long been the pursuit of people who can largely get away with not really needing a viable source of income, particularly during the apprentice and journeyman stages.
Programming has been largely been exempt from that, but if I were in the midst of a traditional comp sci program, facing the existential dreads that are U.S and Canadian economies (at least), along with the effective collapse of a path to financial stability, I'd be stupid not to be considering a major pivot; to what, I don't know.
No job is special, even though many programmers like to think of themselves as so. Everyone must learn to adapt to a changing world, just as they did a hundred years ago at the turn of the century.
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Things that won't be automated anytime soon, like plumbers or electricians.
Or double down on applied ML?
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> This fallacy seems to be brought up very frequently, that there are still blacksmiths; people who ride horses; people who use typewriters; even people who use fountain pens, but they don't really exist in any practical or economical sense outside of 10 years ago Portland, OR.
Did you respond with a fallacy of your own? I can only assume you’re not in or don’t have familiarity with those worlds and that has lead you to conclude they don’t exist in any practical or economical sense. It’s not difficult to look up those industries and their economic impact. Particularly horses and fountain pens. Or are you going by your own idea of practical or economical?
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There may not be many people whose professional job is using a typewriter, but there are still tons of writers.
Yet usually woodworking is not a viable business. As a craft - sure. As a day job to provide for your family - not really. Guys who created a custom tables for me five years ago are out of business.
Pretty much the same story with any craft.
The Mechanics Institute, where craftsman learned and offered their wares in my town, was founded in 1801.
Its still here, today.
I wouldn't dismiss an industry based on business failures. The restaurant industry still exists, despite it being almost a guarantee that you will fail.
There's also stores with hand-knitted clothes and bears, sculpters and painters.
Yes, all of these are niche - but they survive because they embrace a different business model.
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Right, nobody needs cabinets or doors because... AI. /s
I'm a professional woodworker. One-off tables in a garage might not be a great business, but millwork, built-ins, and cabinetry in homes is a great business. You're likely not exposed to cabinet or architectural woodwork shops that build high-end homes, or that just do renovation for that matter.
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This comparison is hardly apt in the way it is formulated, but it is fitting when considering tailors and seamstresses. A few decades ago, numerous tailors made custom-made clothes and skilled seamstresses repaired them. Today, since clothes are made by machines and the cost of production has fallen significantly, making bespoke clothes has become a niche job, almost extinct, and instead of repairing clothes, people prefer to buy new ones.
These jobs have not disappeared, but they have become much less common and attractive.
high quality carpentry has a market of people who buy one off projects for lots of money.
There is not really a similar market in software.
I'm not saying there won't be fine programmers etc. but with woodworking I can see how a market exists that will support you developing your skills and I don't see it with software and thus the path seems much less clear to me.
Bro, there is a HUGE market for one off software projects for lots of money.
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LLLMs replace bad writing with mediocre writing
One thing getting better at writing does is make you better at organizing your thoughts.
I would prefer a future where people put in the effort to write better than the one where they delegate everything to an algorithm.
100%
Working with Jr engineers I found a really strong correlation (even with native speakers of American English) between clear writing (longer email, design docs, etc) and good code.
Writing is thinking
LLMs will make mediocre and bad writers think they are good writers. It will also make consumers of said mediocre and bad writing think they are consuming worthwhile stuff. Not only will writing get worse but expectations for it will sink as well.
(I’ve written this in the future tense but this is all in fact happening already. Amid the slop, decent writing stands out more.)
What is the inherent value of being able to write well?
Is it not possible that people consider their craft to exist at a higher level than the written word? For example, writing facile prose is a very different from being a good storyteller. How many brilliant stories has the world missed out on because the people who imagined them didn't have the confidence with prose to share them.
Your last sentence is one answer to the question you ask in the first sentence.
That's a common usage of a rhetorical question. You ask it and then you answer it.