Comment by Retr0id
10 hours ago
> Present the original and new writing to the model and ask it which is better.
LLMs have absolutely terrible taste when it comes to writing. I don't find their feedback useful at all, beyond trivial spelling/grammar mistakes, which you don't really need an LLM for in the first place.
Proofreading is all you need.
Edit: I do sometimes ask an LLM for a fact-check, though.
Yeah, the best advice is: Don't. Write it yourself; make judgements; learn.
In general use today, AI primarily functions as a stupidity amplifier: it empowers dumb people to do dumb things more pervasively, with less effort, and at unprecedented scale.
We're moving into an era of artificially enhanced stupidity.
That’s what this is: it’s mechanical proofing.
As a "proof" of their poor judgement, take a paragraph you like. Ask the LLM to rewrite it to make it better (which I think we both agree will not make it better), and then in a fresh session ask it which it thinks is best. It'll almost always pick its own writing, even when it sucks.
Right, I agree: that’s exactly not what I’m recommending.
4 replies →
I don't think it's a useful substitute for actual proofreading though, unless you're truly in a time crunch. When I proofread I don't just look for mistakes, I try to put myself into the position of a prospective audience member. LLMs seem to have absolutely no concept of "theory of the reader's mind". If I'm going for extra high effort, I have friends read it, usually asking them to identify anything that was unclear or hard to follow.