8 ms·
Cutting trees for fuel and paper to send a letter burned resources. Nobody gained in that transaction
by xorgun 9mo ago
Cutting trees for fuel and paper to send a letter burned resources. Nobody gained in that transaction
- Blackthorn 9mo agoI shouldn't have to explain this, but a letter would involve actual emotion and thought and be a dialog between two humans.
- gcau 9mo agoI shouldn't have to explain this, but a letter is a medium of communication, that could just as easily be written by a LLM (and transcribed by a human onto paper).
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- ImPostingOnHN 9mo agoI shouldn't have to explain this, but a letter is a medium of communication between people. Automated systems sending people unsolicited, unwanted emails is more commonly known as spam. Especially when the spam comes with a notice that it is from an automated system and replies will be automated as well.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- Imustaskforhelp 9mo agoCommunicate between what though? Communication happen between two parties. I wouldn't consider LLM an party considering it's just an autosuggestion on steroids at the end of day (lets face it) Also if you need communication like this, just share the prompt anyway to that other person in the letter, people much rather might value that.
- xorgun 9mo agoWe’re well past that. Social media killed that first. Some people have a hard time articulating their thoughts. If AI is a tool to help, why is that bad?
- ai_is_the_best 9mo ago[flagged]
- irishcoffee 9mo agoArticulating thoughts is the backbone of communication. Replacing that with some kind of emotionless groupthink does actually destroy human-to-human communication. I would wager that the amount of “very significant thing that have happened over the history of humanity” come down to a few emotional responses.
- fwip 9mo agoDo you think that the LLM helped deliver a thoughtful letter to Rob Pike?
- neltnerb 9mo agoImagine the process of solving a problem as a sequence of hundreds of little decisions that branch between just two options. There is some probability that your human brain would choose one versus the other. If you insert AI into your thinking process, it has a bias, for sure. It will helpfully reinforce whatever you tell it you think makes sense, or at least on average it will be interpreted that way because of a wide variety of human cognitive biases even if it hedges. At the least it will respond with ideas that are very... median. So at each one of these tiny branches you introduce a bias towards the "typical" instead of discovering where your own mind would go. It's fine and conversational but it clearly influences your thought process to, well, mitigate your edges. Maybe it's more "correct", it's certainly less unique. And then at some point they start charging for the service. That's the part I'm concerned about, if it's on-device and free to use I still think it makes your thought process less interesting and likely to have original ideas, but having to subscribe to a service to trust your decision making is deeply concerning.
- lukan 9mo agoYou have never received automated spam letters?
- kentm 9mo agoDo you think that spam letters are generally considered to be a good use of resources?
- lukan 9mo agoNo, but it counters this point "a letter would involve actual emotion and thought and be a dialog between two humans."
- kentm 9mo agoI don't think it does unless you ignore the context of the conversation. Its very clear that the reference about "letters" being made wasn't "all mail."
- DonHopkins 9mo agoWriting personal letters has other dangers as well. Remember how George Costanza's fiancée got killed.
- kgwxd 9mo agoWhen the thought is "I'd like this person to know how grateful I am", the medium doesn't really matter. When the thought is "I owe this person a 'Thank You'", the handwritten letter gives an illusion of deeper thought. That's why there are fonts designed to look handwritten. To the receiver, they're just junk mail. I'd rather not get them at all, in any form. I was happy just having done the thing, and the thoughtless response slightly lessens that joy.
- yes_man 9mo agoSomeone taking the time and effort to write and send a letter and pay for postage might actually be appreciated by the receiver. It’s a bit different from LLM agents being ordered to burn resources to send summaries of someone’s work life and congratulating them. It feels like ”hey look what can be done, can we get some more funding now”. Just because it can be done doesn’t mean it adds any good value to this world
- gspetr 9mo agoNope, that ship has already sailed as well. An AI-powered service to do handwritten spam: https://handwrytten.com https://handwrytten.com
- palmotea 9mo ago> Nope, that ship has already sailed as well. An AI-powered service to do handwritten spam: https://handwrytten.com https://handwrytten.com FFS. AI's greatest accomplishment is to debase and destroy. Trillions of dollars invested to bring us back to the stone age. Every communications technology from writing onward jammed by slop and abandoned.
- xorgun 9mo agoI don’t know anyone who doesn’t immediately throw said enveloppe, postage, and letter in the trash
- throw20251220 9mo agoYou surround yourself with the people you want to have around you.
- yes_man 9mo agoOk, and that supports the idea of LLM-generated mass spamming in what way…?
- vodou 9mo agoThen you are part of truly strange circles, among people who don’t understand human behavior.
- throw20251220 9mo agoUse recycled paper.
- devnonymous 9mo agoHow is it that so many people who supposedly lean towards analytical thought are so bad at understanding scale?