LLMs write better than most journalists. It also writes better than majority people in the world when it comes to English as majority are really bad in writing.

And of course, LLMs write as you prompt.

Personally, I'm happy to read broken English from non English people or good English from English people. But I'd rather read LLM writing than read typical long form perfect English journalist crap.

▲ zahlman 16 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> But I'd rather read LLM writing than read typical long form perfect English journalist crap.

The problem is precisely that LLM writing is that exact thing (at least by default), but even more so. Longer-form, more "perfect" in some technical sense, and yet crappier.

▲ jampekka 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> LLMs write better than most journalists.

I used to think this, but now that I've been trying to use them to help with writing, it turns out they are not necessarily that great on the deeper level. The grammar and the surface style are impeccable, but they often struggle with continuity and carrying on a point or an argument.

▲ riskable 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I've come to trust their grammar corrections implicitly. So much that I've setup a "Fix Grammar" command with Obsidian Copilot that I'll just let it run on a whole chapter (YOLO mode):

    Proofread the following text for grammar, punctuation, and typos while
    strictly preserving the author's voice, pacing, and intentional stylistic
    choices (such as sentence fragments or character dialogue quirks).

    Rules:
    - Correct objective spelling errors, misused words, and unintended punctuation mistakes.
    - Smooth out unintentional syntactic snags without homogenizing unique phrasing.
    - Retain all Markdown formatting.
    - Return ONLY the corrected text with no intro, summary, or explanations.

    Text to edit:
    {selection}

About a year ago, all three big AI vendors could end up with strange "corrections" that would throw you off, but not anymore. As far as I'm concerned, they've solved "the grammar checking problem."

The complexity in this command is there for phi4:14b and qwen3:14b which I run locally via ollama. If the text doesn't have any Obsidian callouts or similar, fancy stuff I just use either of those and they do a fantastic job in seconds. For Big AI (e.g. Gemini, GPT-whatevs, Claude) you can literally just tell it, "fix the grammar." No need for the lengthy command.

NOTE: I am decent with English grammar so most of what needs fixing is typos I didn't spot or misplaced commas and periods inside/outside of quotes (I always screw that up without thinking—even though I know the rules! LOL). Occasionally, Big AI (Gemini, specifically) have disagreements about whether a comma is necessary in a particular spot but it's always of no real consequence.

	▲	zahlman 13 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> About a year ago, all three big AI vendors could end up with strange "corrections" that would throw you off, but not anymore. Without a history of diffs created by this method, I don't believe you. > I am decent with English grammar so most of what needs fixing is typos I didn't spot or misplaced commas and periods inside/outside of quotes (I always screw that up without thinking—even though I know the rules! LOL). The rules there vary by style guide and are not objective. LLMs seem like massive overkill for something the red and green squiggles can already accomplish.

▲ 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

▲ CrimsonRain 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

With current LLMs, the continuity/carrying/context management is _your_ task. When AGI is achieved etc...

▲ wavemode 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> LLMs write better than most journalists

In my personal experience I strongly disagree. Curious what publications you read wherein this is the case.

▲

anon84873628 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I suspect the commenter prefers the concise, factual summary of an LLM.

It is true that modern journalism on the web is trying to get ad impressions. After all, this is how we ended up with clickbait. Sure you still have the Economist and Atlantic (which aren't beyond criticism), but your local county paper is an absolute mess. The content is stretched, meandering, and designed to keep you scrolling through more impressions.

	▲	zahlman 12 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> concise, factual summary of an LLM. Pardon; the what?

▲ anon84873628 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I would almost never transmit LLM output without a decent amount of editing. But I also don't understand people who paint it as this horrible offensive unreadable slop.

Calling it better than most journalists is extreme (and probably the reason for down votes), but it must certainly be better than the average person.

We're hearing this criticism from the highly educated professional class people who bother to have their own blog or otherwise spend their time talking about technology online. I mean come on.

To most people, the LLM must feel incredibly empowering, like us wearing a mecha suit. Would we always show restraint and only apply our newfound enhanced physical strength in carefully considered situations?

	▲	antonvs 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> But I also don't understand people who paint it as this horrible offensive unreadable slop. When a piece of writing is full of LLM tells, I find it as offensive as any formulaic writing, except that the LLM style has quickly become pervasive, much more so than any other type of formulaic writing. I’m not reacting out of some general dislike of LLMs - I use them daily. I’m reacting because I don’t like terrible writing.

▲ LtWorf 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They are worse than most people at communicating ideas.

▲ kjs3 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You can really tell when the MAGA crowd shows up.