Comment by ipdashc
4 hours ago
> Please be more specific.
The em dashes are the most obvious stereotypical tell, but that doesn't really matter that much (I actually like them and occasionally used them pre-AI). It's hard to put a finger on, but the most annoying LLMism to me is the overdramatic, staccato, almost "epic" way they talk. It feels like a 2009 lens flare effect over everything, it sounds like a stereotypical hacker in a CSI show.
> the last generation whose datasheets document the DRAM controller's translation registers — and show that they can't be locked
> When your code dereferences *p, it appears to access the DRAM at p. It does not — p is a virtual address
> Physical addresses are really more of a suggestion.
> That's the exploit. All of it.
The worst part is that this stuff is genuinely cool and deserves to be dramatic. And I like stereotypical, campy hacker speak! But LLMs are, IDK... bad at it? Or maybe it just becomes a bore to read the same. Exact. Dramatic. Voice. From literally everyone. After you've heard it enough times.
None of this is against Mr. Domas. He seems like a cool person, with a cool voice, and I want to read his voice, not Claude's.
> What if you're wrong?
I definitely could be! Apologies if I am. But with all the em dashes and such, and having read his previous work, I felt confident enough to mention it. And as the sibling comment says, it really is something you just learn to spot over time.
It's the ASCII diagrams for me. Although I hesitate to point it out because they are usually helpful unlike the em dashes. Before LLMs, ASCII diagrams in readmes were a half baked mess, if one were present at all. Now every project has at least one perfectly made ASCII diagram - instant LLM tell.
> Although I hesitate to point it out because they are usually helpful unlike the em dashes.
Likewise, I don't mind the diagrams. Though they do often have the same flaw as other text, being that the LLM throws in EVERYTHING, vs. a handmade one that'd generally have more taste and discretion to it. That can kind of work in its favor here, since the point is just to show the complexity of the stack, but on the other hand the reader lacks confidence that every item in there is "really" a part of the stack (which I would be fully confident in for this author, had he written it by hand) and not just some process related to memory/DRAM that the LLM decided to toss in.
> Now every project has at least one perfectly made ASCII diagram - instant LLM tell.
Damn. Now my artist-mode in Emacs skills are useless.
> When your code dereferences *p, it appears to access the DRAM at p. It does not — p is a virtual address
I hate these especially much: It's at the same both both overly dramatic, it's presented as some great reveal that will change everything, while at the same time being completely trivial and only detracts from the explanation. If you have no idea that memory addresses are translated you will understand absolutely nothing from the text or even what this is all about. If you want to explain what an MMU is, just do that instead and don't present it as some great revelation.
But some equally dramatic phrasings could just as well be something that leaves you astonished. You never know. You have to skim the text to find what is useful information and what is just filler. The signal-to-noise is low.
It's called slop for a reason.
Huh, didn't think of it this way, but it captures it really well, yeah.