tombarys (u/tombarys)

tombarys commented on I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer lifehacky.net/prompt-0b95... · Posted by u/tombarys

johnnyfived · a month ago

What's interesting about thinking of code as art is that there rarely a variety of ways of implementing logic that's all optimal. So if you decide on the implementation and have a LLM code it, you likely won't need to make major changes given the right guidelines (I just mean like a single script, for the sake of comparison).

Writing is entirely different, and for some reason, generic writing even when polished (ChatGPT-esque tone) is so much more intolerable than say AI-generated imagery. Images can blend in the background, reading takes active processing so we're much more sensitive. And for the end user of a product, they care 0 or next to 0 about AI code.

tombarys · a month ago

> "Images can blend in the background, reading takes active processing so we're much more sensitive. And for the end user of a product, they care 0 or next to 0 about AI code."

Very interesting point!

tombarys commented on I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer lifehacky.net/prompt-0b95... · Posted by u/tombarys

shakna · a month ago

Not the author, but another author here and...

Well, it has a problem with my use of the Oxford comma, for one. Because a huge amount of the corpus is American English, and mine ain't. So it fails on grammar repeatedly.

And if you introduce any words of your own, it will sometimes randomly correct them to something else, and randomly correct other words to the made up ones. And it can't always tell when it's made such a change. And sometimes it does that even if you're just mixing existing languages like French or English. So you can make it useless for spellcheck by touching more than one language.

I do keep trying, despite the fact my stuff has been stolen and is in the training data, because of all the proselytising, but right now... No AI is useful for my writing. Not even just for grammar and spelling.

tombarys · a month ago

Agree 100%.

tombarys commented on I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer lifehacky.net/prompt-0b95... · Posted by u/tombarys

magic_hamster · a month ago

There have been quite a few skeptic blog posts recently about LLM. Some say they won't use it for coding, others for getting creative ideas, and others won't use it for editing and publishing. However, the silent issue all these posts have in common is that resistance is futile.

To be fair, I also don't like using Copilot when working on code. In many cases it turns into a weird experience when the agent generates the next line(s) and I basically become a discriminator judging if the thing really understands my problem and solution. To be honest, it's boring even if eventually it might make me turn in code faster.

With that said, I cannot ignore that LLMs are happening, and this is the future. The models keep improving but more importantly, the ecosystem keeps improving with things like MCP and better defined context for LLM tools.

We might be looking at a somewhat grim prospect. But like it or not, this is the future. Adapt and survive.

tombarys · a month ago

I understand. The question is what does it mean to "survive" for someone.

For me survival means: - continuing to do my best at the language level – even if more people would start be gradually satisfied with less - I just believe that education, critical thinking and evidence-based principles are at core of humanity progress and one day it will make comeback - I am ok with smaller income and not wishing to exchange it for creating bullshit

The adaptation for me means: - generally: stay open-minded - I have to understand and somehow accept that the prospect is a bit grim but not to fall into some extreme and doom thinking - I have to explore new ways how to augment human-oriented creativity (with or without these tools)

What do you think?

tombarys commented on I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer lifehacky.net/prompt-0b95... · Posted by u/tombarys

esjeon · a month ago

I know a publisher who translates books (English to Korean). He works alone these days. Using GPT, he can produce a decent-quality first draft within a day or two. His later steps are also vastly accelerated because GPT reliably catches typos and grammar errors. It doesn't take more than a month to translate and print a book from scratch. Marvelous.

But I still don't like that the same model struggles w/ my projects...

tombarys · a month ago

This is a topic for another article! We tried hard to use (test) translation tools in some real-life scenarios. The results seemed like they can help first but then we spent a lot of time again to reach our standards. As a side-effect, our translators and editors felt they are losing their own creativity and sensitivity in that process.

We are a publisher which succeeded due to the highest-quality translations. Our readers appreciated it and ask for it. Czech language is very rich and these machines are not able to make the most of it. The non-fiction sphere needs a lot of fact-checking e.g. in local and field terminology too. So even we can imagine the process of translation could be technically shortened by machine translation, it would probably ruin our reputation in a long term.

At least for now...

tombarys commented on I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer lifehacky.net/prompt-0b95... · Posted by u/tombarys

tolerance · a month ago

For things like coding LLMs are useful and DEVONThink's recent AI integrations allow me to use local models as something like an encyclopedia or thesaurus to summarize unfamiliar blocks of text. At best I use it like scratch paper.

I formed the habit of exporting entire chats to Markdown and found them useless. Whatever I found of useful from a given response either sparked a superseding thought of my own or was just a reiteration of my own intuitive thoughts.

I've moved from ChatGPT to Claude. The results are practically the same as far as I can tell (although my gut tells me I get better code from Claude) but the I think Anthropic have a better feel for response readability. Sometimes processing a ChatGPT response is like reading a white paper.

Other than that, LLMs get predictable to me after a while and I get why people suspect that they're starting to plateau.

tombarys · a month ago

You are right. It plateaued and even degraded in some way. Or we just got more sensitive to its bullshiting?

tombarys commented on I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer lifehacky.net/prompt-0b95... · Posted by u/tombarys

ants_everywhere · a month ago

My writing style is pretty labor intensive [0]. I go through a lot of drafts and read things out loud to make sure they work well etc. And I tend to have a high standard for making sure I source things.

I personally think an LLM could help with some of this, and this is something I've been thinking about the past few days. But I'd have to build a pipeline and figure out a way to make it amplify what I like about my voice rather than have me speak through its voice.

I used to have a sort of puritanical view of art. And I think a younger version of myself would have been low key horrified at the amount of work in great art that was delegated to assistants. E.g. a sculptor (say Michelangelo) would typically make a miniature to get approval from patrons and the final sculpture would be scaled up. Hopefully for major works, the master was closely involved in the scaling up. But I would bet that for minor works (or maybe even the typical work) assistants did a lot of the final piece.

The same happens (and has always happened) with successful authors. Having assistants do bits here or there. Maybe some research, maybe some corrections, maybe some drafts. Possibly relying on them increasingly as you get later in your career or if you're commercially successful enough to need to produce at greater scale.

I think LLMs will obviously fit into these existing processes. They'll also be used to generate content that is never checked by a human before shipping. I think the right balance is yet to be seen, and there will always be people who insist on more deliberate and slower practices over mass production.

[0] Aside from internet comments of course, which are mostly stream of consciousness.

tombarys · a month ago

Good point! Thanks.

I like the perspective of "choices" during creation. It is an essential principle of the real art that it is a result of thousands/millions of deliberate choices. This is what we admire on the art. If you use mostly machine (or other kind of ways that decide instead and for you) for creation, you as an creator simply do less choices.

In this case, you delegate many of your experienced/crazy/hard decisions to the model (which is based on such decision made already by other artists but combines them in a random way). It is like decompressing JPG – some things are just hallucinated by machine.

From the perspective of pure human creativity, the result is thin, diluted. Even it seems like deliberate. In my opinion art lovers will seek for the dense art made by human, maybe asking even more for some kind of "proof" of the human-based process. What do you think?

tombarys commented on I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer lifehacky.net/prompt-0b95... · Posted by u/tombarys

billy99k · a month ago

A bit different when you actually see the results.

A guy I went to highschool with complains endlessly about AI generated art and graphics (he's an artist) and like you, just wants to bury his head in the sand.

Consumers don't care if art is generated by AI or humans and in a short period of time, you won't be able to tell the difference.

With the money being poured into AI by all major tech companies, you will be unemployed if you don't keep up with AI.

tombarys · a month ago

> "Consumers don't care if art is generated by AI or humans"

Maybe not yet. The real "art" consumers were always very sensitive and asking for originality (thus scarcity). It is an essential principle of the art that it is a result of thousands/millions of deliberate choices. If you use machine for creation, you less choices. You delegate most of your talented/crazy/hard choices to the model (which is based on such choices of already talented but combines them in a random way). The result is thin, diluted even it seems like deliberate. In my opinion the most art lovers will continue to seek for the dense art made by human, asking for some kind of proof. :) The real art will be even more appreciated. I guess.

tombarys commented on I avoid using LLMs as a publisher and writer lifehacky.net/prompt-0b95... · Posted by u/tombarys

tombarys · a month ago

I am a book publisher & I love technology. It can empower people. I have been using LLM chatbots since they became widely available. I regularly test machine translation at our publishing house in collaboration with our translators. I have just completed two courses in artificial intelligence and machine learning at my alma mater, Masaryk University, and I am training my own experimental models (for predicting bestsellers :). I consider machine learning to be a remarkable invention and catalyst for progress. Despite all this, I have my doubts.

tombarys commented on I created a new time-blocking concept for busy days and it works nautilus-omnibus.web.app... · Posted by u/tombarys

snthpy · a year ago

Love it! Really well thought out. Looking forward to trying this out tomorrow.

Explorer it so far, here are a couple of pointers that I think would make it better for me: * I'd like the Nautilus to be larger, so maybe have that on the left and the text input on the RHS next to it? * The shading of the yellow and blue areas seems to subtle and difficult to tell apart on my screen. Would it be possible to have those more distinct? * Some keyboard shortcuts would be great, e.g. for quickly reordering tasks; maybe something like Ctrl+J/K or CTRL+Arrow keys?

Overall, the Nautilus shape is a bit foreign at first and I don't immediately have an intuitive sense of it but I think that's just unfamiliarity and would quickly change with time. With a bit of training so that the shape becomes second nature then I think this will be awesome for productivity! At that point I'd love to be able to use this in a standalone app, maybe an Electron app or something like that.

tombarys · a year ago

Thank you very much. I will think of a way to improve the shading while keeping the basic principle and simplicity. Thanks for the other ideas; it is still in progress. I added pasting the calendar from Apple Calendar yesterday.