Since LLMs were introduced, I've been of the belief that this technology actually makes writing a *more* important skill to develop than less. So far that belief has held. No matter how advanced the model gets, you'll get better results if you can clarify your thoughts well in written language.

There may be a future AI-based system that can retain so much context it can kind of just "get what you mean" when you say off-the-cuff things, but I believe that a user that can think, speak, and write clearly will still have a skill advantage over one that does not.

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sothatsit 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

FWIW, I've heard many people say that with voice dictation they ramble to LLMs and by speaking more words can convey their meaning well, even if their writing quality is low. I don't do this regularly, but when I have tried it, it seemed to work just as well as my purposefully-written prompts. I can imagine a non-technical person rambling enough that the AI gets what they mean.

	▲	dworks 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The prompt the user enters is actually not the prompt. Most agents will have an additional background step to use the user's prompt to generate the actual, detailed instructions, which is then used as the actual prompt for code generation. That's how the ability to build a website from "create a website that looks like twitter" is achieved.
	▲	headcanon 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Thats a fair counterpoint, and it has helped translate my random thoughts into more coherent text. I also haven't taken advantage of dictation much at all either, so maybe I'll give it a try. I still think the baseline skill that writing gives you translates to an LLM-use skill, which is thinking clearly and knowing how to structure your thoughts. Maybe folks can get that skill in other ways (oration, art, etc.). I don't need to give it essays, but I do need to give it clear instructions. Every time it spins off and does something I don't want, its because I didn't clarify my thoughts correctly.

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imiric 28 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> No matter how advanced the model gets, you'll get better results if you can clarify your thoughts well in written language.

Imagine what we could accomplish if we had a way of writing very precise language that is easy for a machine to interpret!