I think the Oxide computer LLM guidelines are wise on this front:

> Finally, LLM-generated prose undermines a social contract of sorts: absent LLMs, it is presumed that of the reader and the writer, it is the writer that has undertaken the greater intellectual exertion. (That is, it is more work to write than to read!) For the reader, this is important: should they struggle with an idea, they can reasonably assume that the writer themselves understands it — and it is the least a reader can do to labor to make sense of it.

https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0576#_llms_as_writers

The heavy use of LLMs in writing makes people rightfully distrustful that they should put the time in to try to read what's written there.

Using LLMs for coding is different in many ways from writing, because the proof is more there in the pudding - you can run it, you can test it, etc. But the writing _is_ the writing, and the only way to know it's correct is to put in the work.

That doesn't mean you didn't put in the work! But I think it's why people are distrustful and have a bit of an allergic reaction to LLM-generated writing.

Speaking directly, if I catch the scent of ChatGPT, it's over.

People put out AI text, primarily, to run hustles.

So its writing style is a kind of internet version of "talking like a used car salesman".

With some people that's fine, but anyone with a healthy epistemic immune system is not going to listen to you.

If you want to save a few minutes, you'll just have to accept that.

I agree with that for programming, but not for writing. The stylistic tics are obtrusive and annoying, and make for bad writing. I think I'm sympathetic to the argument this piece is making, but I couldn't make myself slog through the LinkedIn-bot prose.

"But snark away. It’s lazy. And yes it is so damn tedious."

Looks like this comment is embracing the tools too?

I'd take cheap snark over something somebody didn't bother to write, but expect us to read.

Why should anyone bother to read what nobody wrote?

Having an LLM write your blog posts is also lazy, and it's damn tedious to read.

(1) The pattern "It's not just a X---It's a Y" is super common in LLM-generated text for some reason. Complete with em dash. (I like em dashes and I wish LLMs weren't ruining them for the rest of us)

"Upgrading your CPU wasn’t a spec sheet exercise — it was transformative."

"You weren’t just a user. You were a systems engineer by necessity."

"The tinkerer spirit didn’t die of natural causes — it was bought out and put to work optimising ad clicks."

And in general a lot of "It's not <alternative>, it's <something else>", with or without an em dash:

"But it wasn’t just the craft that changed. The promise changed."

it's really verbose. One of those in a piece might be eye-catching and make someone think, but an entire blog post made up of them is _tiresome_.

(2) Phrasing like this seems to come out of LLMs a lot, particularly ChatGPT:

"I don’t want to be dishonest about this. "

(3) Lots of use of very short catch sentences / almost sentence fragments to try to "punch up" the writing. Look at all of the paragraphs after the first in the section "The era that made me":

"These weren’t just products. " (start of a paragraph)

"And the software side matched." (next P)

"Then it professionalised."

"But it wasn’t just the craft that changed."

"But I adapted." (a few paragraphs after the previous one)

And .. more. It's like the LLM latched on to things that were locally "interesting" writing, but applies them globally, turning the entire thing into a soup of "ah-ha! hey! here!" completely ignorant of the terrible harm it does to the narrative structure and global readability of the piece.

This is not either of those. This is the equivalent of a eulogy to a passion and a craft. Using an LLM to write it: entire sections, headers, sentences - is an insult to the craft.

The post in the same vain, "We mourn our craft", did a much better job at this communicating the point without the AI influence.

At least then you’re being honest about you hating your intended audience, and not proudly posting the slop vomited forth from your algorithmic garbage machine as if it were something that deserved the time, thought and consideration of your equals.