Comment by jollyllama
12 days ago
>The problem is not X. It's Y.
Your writing style, if not your thoughts, have already been infected by LLM prose.
12 days ago
>The problem is not X. It's Y.
Your writing style, if not your thoughts, have already been infected by LLM prose.
No. I've been using that construct long before LLMs and I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It allows you to succinctly state the position you're disagreeing with before putting forward another hypothesis. LLMs overuse it for needless emphasis, with the negative example usually reduced to a single word.
It's never been so prevalent as now, it's everywhere. I didn't mean any of this as a bad faith thing, it genuinely is changing how people think, speak, etc. Also, I don't consider hedging or defensive writing or negative definitions succinct (it's not a wall of text, granted) and in ordinary times it did indeed have its place.
Edit: I would add that you literally followed the formula in every respect except for a single word, and IMO LLMs are already changing to avoid the single-word formulation.
Anyone over the age of 25 actually developed their writing style before ChatGPT came about. Getting all uppity about these surface-level LLM ‘tropes’ is just stupid. I am thankfully yet to run into a situation where someone with this attitude is actually in a position to be able to negatively affect my life. I’m sure that there’s a correlation. Take the “ew, em-dash” stuff back to Twitter.
Yeah - writing styles have really changed over the years. Last time I ran a business document thru Grammarly, I was told it wasn't written at a 6(8?) grade level and was too complex :-P
When I first started out, I was taught you use passive voice in proposals (eg 'a program will be written..' not 'I will write a program...') since you didn't know who was actually going to write it. I can't imagine how that would go over now...
Strunk & White said not to use passive voice since, what, the 1920s? “We will write a program”, or “one of us will write a program” works without passivizing it.
3 replies →
I resent your em-dash reductivism and "stupid" insult. The LLM cliches got old very fast.
> I am thankfully yet to run into a situation where someone with this attitude is actually in a position to be able to negatively affect my life
I don't get it, you're so attached to certain cliches that to attack them in person would somehow be a detriment to you?
> I’m sure that there’s a correlation.
What are you implying?
This doesn't apply here - I don't think? The article claims X; so it is surely no sin for the post rebutting it to straight up state that X is, in fact, not the case.
The LLM tic, by contrast, has a noticeable tendency to be deployed even when X has never been previously mentioned. It is a valid rhetorical technique, and I assume that's why the LLMs have picked up on it - but it has to be deployed judiciously. Which is something LLMs appear absolutely incapable of doing. And that is why people notice it, and think it sucks.
Just because LLMs overuse it doesn't mean it doesn't have its place.
The way the OP used the 'not X, but Y' pattern, the 'X' and 'Y' are two clear, specific, and (most importantly) distinct things, as opposed to stereotypical LLM usage where they're vague characterizations or metaphors. And there's a reason to emphasize that it's not X, because the Slop Cop website implicitly suggests that it is X.
Nonsense. It's a common construction that LLMs didn't exactly invent. I don't think their usage evokes LLM writing at all (not short and punchy enough).