6 ms·

Well, the "About the Author" section should probably just be a link to claude.ai.

sevg 2mo ago
Yeah the (annoyingly) excessive use of colons feels like recent Claude models to me. Looks like author posted this themselves earlier, and even used Claude for the HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48958457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48958457
- infinite_spin 2mo ago
  I've always used a lot of semi-colons in my writing, especially in my technical writing. So I did a search on this pdf for semi colons, and there are 260 in a 264 page document. I then repeated this for the last book I read, Candide by Voltaire, and there were 507 semi colons in a 189 page book. This seems like a witch hunt.
  - rwmj 2mo ago
    I read parts of it, being first hand involved in all this, and it seems like it was written by AI to me. If you used an AI to write it or help with it, why not just admit to it?
    - infinite_spin 2mo ago
      the argument was that use of semi-colons indicates AI usage.. what do you mean by "being first hand involved in all this"? what part did you take if you don't mind sharing, this was an incredibly interesting turn of events.
      - rwmj 2mo ago
        You'd know that if you'd done any research at all. Compare this to Jeff Guo (NPR) or Henry van Dyck (Veritasium) or my contact at the WSJ. They all investigated this story, interviewed key people (more people were interviewed for the Veritasium video than appeared), and fact-checked everything with subject matter experts. The NPR story took about 3 months of work and the Veritasium video took 5 months. I was interviewed in total for over 6 hours across all of them. These are real journalists who worked on these stories and they produced novel work and new findings. I have huge respect for them, especially after being involved with it and seeing what work it took to add something new to the story. At the same time they managed to tell that story to a lay audience which is another skill in itself.
        infinite_spin 2mo ago
        > You'd know that if you'd done any research at all. I'm not in the habit of researching the people who respond to me before I ask them about what their role was in something they seem proud of. I thought I was being polite by asking about it. That's really cool that you were interviewed, which of the interviews do you think most represents your hand in this? I wouldn't mind checking it out. I also really like Veritasium's channel, that's pretty awesome.
        bigDinosaur 2mo ago
        In this case all it required was to follow the link to their blog on their HN profile just FYI. Although your question was reasonable either way.
  - jstanley 2mo ago
    I pasted the introduction into Pangram and it said 100% AI.
    - infinite_spin 2mo ago
      well also I read the parent's comment wrong, they just said colons, not semi-colons
  - sevg 2mo ago
    You know I said colons right? Not semi colons :)
    - infinite_spin 2mo ago
      ah my mistake, those are a bit uncommon in my writing, I feel like they seem pretentious. i just use the semi-colons because it's closer to the way I pause, and alternate, in my thoughts.
- progbits 2mo ago
  In last month or two I noticed semicolons getting used where previously it would be em-dash, in both cases excessively and often incorrectly. I assumed some of my coworkers added "replace all em-dashes with semicolons" into their CLAUDE.md as a really crappy attempt at hiding their inability to write a single sentence without assistance.
  - tux3 2mo ago
    Come on now, you can't also take away my semicolons. What am I supposed to do now; I barely have any punctuation left.
    - dag100 2mo ago
      Embrace the inner Cormac McCarthy in you and abandon punctuation altogether
    - progbits 2mo ago
      Not taking it away. I hate those arguments "it has emdash therefore AI", of course humans also write that way. But poor and excessive usage of them is a pretty strong red flag, also together with other tells.
- eth0up 2mo ago
  "free book" "no paywall and nothing to buy." Might this not actually be a reasonable purpose for AI? I can tolerate the quirky style and AI signatures for something honest and free.
  - rwmj 2mo ago
    But prompting an AI adds nothing. Journalism is about research, interviewing the people involved, finding new facts, and then presenting that to your audience in a way they can understand. Getting an AI to write about something is just diluting the signal for future researchers.
    - jersmtpd 2mo ago
      You can have an AI help write it while still having done research yourself, they're not mutually exclusive. I'm not claiming whether he actually did that or not. Like, for me personally, I'm terrible at writing, so I'll gladly have some AI throw together a draft, which I then verify and edit.
      - eth0up 2mo ago
        exactly. If I am writing a free book with solid information, well, I am not writing it, because I am not writing free books -- I don't have time. But if AI can arrange my data, thoughts, perspective, and articulate it effectively, then I will let AI write the free book. If the book contains new, or previously unarticulated data and insight, then why not? But I see the very thought is hotly contested here.
  - bandrami 2mo ago
    Why not just post the prompt you used? I have access to LLMs too.
    - eth0up 2mo ago
      I have over 6gb of material resulting from interactions with AI. Even a micro-essay of mediocre quality requires dozens of prompts. Why post dozens and dozens of prompts if the final product is cleaner, and easier to process? I see utterly zero reason. Edit: One of the things I learned quickly while working with LLMs, is that the quality of the user, the input, determines the quality of the output. Not everyone's input is of equal quality.
jllyhill 2mo ago
For anyone wondering, here's the author confirming it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48966159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48966159 And here's their Claude skill for writing https://github.com/AdrianMastronardi/bookwright https://github.com/AdrianMastronardi/bookwright

sevg 2mo ago

Yeah the (annoyingly) excessive use of colons feels like recent Claude models to me. Looks like author posted this themselves earlier, and even used Claude for the HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48958457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48958457

infinite_spin 2mo ago
I've always used a lot of semi-colons in my writing, especially in my technical writing. So I did a search on this pdf for semi colons, and there are 260 in a 264 page document. I then repeated this for the last book I read, Candide by Voltaire, and there were 507 semi colons in a 189 page book. This seems like a witch hunt.
- rwmj 2mo ago
  I read parts of it, being first hand involved in all this, and it seems like it was written by AI to me. If you used an AI to write it or help with it, why not just admit to it?
  - infinite_spin 2mo ago
    the argument was that use of semi-colons indicates AI usage.. what do you mean by "being first hand involved in all this"? what part did you take if you don't mind sharing, this was an incredibly interesting turn of events.
    - rwmj 2mo ago
      You'd know that if you'd done any research at all. Compare this to Jeff Guo (NPR) or Henry van Dyck (Veritasium) or my contact at the WSJ. They all investigated this story, interviewed key people (more people were interviewed for the Veritasium video than appeared), and fact-checked everything with subject matter experts. The NPR story took about 3 months of work and the Veritasium video took 5 months. I was interviewed in total for over 6 hours across all of them. These are real journalists who worked on these stories and they produced novel work and new findings. I have huge respect for them, especially after being involved with it and seeing what work it took to add something new to the story. At the same time they managed to tell that story to a lay audience which is another skill in itself.
      - infinite_spin 2mo ago
        > You'd know that if you'd done any research at all. I'm not in the habit of researching the people who respond to me before I ask them about what their role was in something they seem proud of. I thought I was being polite by asking about it. That's really cool that you were interviewed, which of the interviews do you think most represents your hand in this? I wouldn't mind checking it out. I also really like Veritasium's channel, that's pretty awesome.
        bigDinosaur 2mo ago
        In this case all it required was to follow the link to their blog on their HN profile just FYI. Although your question was reasonable either way.
- jstanley 2mo ago
  I pasted the introduction into Pangram and it said 100% AI.
  - infinite_spin 2mo ago
    well also I read the parent's comment wrong, they just said colons, not semi-colons
- sevg 2mo ago
  You know I said colons right? Not semi colons :)
  - infinite_spin 2mo ago
    ah my mistake, those are a bit uncommon in my writing, I feel like they seem pretentious. i just use the semi-colons because it's closer to the way I pause, and alternate, in my thoughts.
progbits 2mo ago
In last month or two I noticed semicolons getting used where previously it would be em-dash, in both cases excessively and often incorrectly. I assumed some of my coworkers added "replace all em-dashes with semicolons" into their CLAUDE.md as a really crappy attempt at hiding their inability to write a single sentence without assistance.
- tux3 2mo ago
  Come on now, you can't also take away my semicolons. What am I supposed to do now; I barely have any punctuation left.
  - dag100 2mo ago
    Embrace the inner Cormac McCarthy in you and abandon punctuation altogether
  - progbits 2mo ago
    Not taking it away. I hate those arguments "it has emdash therefore AI", of course humans also write that way. But poor and excessive usage of them is a pretty strong red flag, also together with other tells.
eth0up 2mo ago
"free book" "no paywall and nothing to buy." Might this not actually be a reasonable purpose for AI? I can tolerate the quirky style and AI signatures for something honest and free.
- rwmj 2mo ago
  But prompting an AI adds nothing. Journalism is about research, interviewing the people involved, finding new facts, and then presenting that to your audience in a way they can understand. Getting an AI to write about something is just diluting the signal for future researchers.
  - jersmtpd 2mo ago
    You can have an AI help write it while still having done research yourself, they're not mutually exclusive. I'm not claiming whether he actually did that or not. Like, for me personally, I'm terrible at writing, so I'll gladly have some AI throw together a draft, which I then verify and edit.
    - eth0up 2mo ago
      exactly. If I am writing a free book with solid information, well, I am not writing it, because I am not writing free books -- I don't have time. But if AI can arrange my data, thoughts, perspective, and articulate it effectively, then I will let AI write the free book. If the book contains new, or previously unarticulated data and insight, then why not? But I see the very thought is hotly contested here.
- bandrami 2mo ago
  Why not just post the prompt you used? I have access to LLMs too.
  - eth0up 2mo ago
    I have over 6gb of material resulting from interactions with AI. Even a micro-essay of mediocre quality requires dozens of prompts. Why post dozens and dozens of prompts if the final product is cleaner, and easier to process? I see utterly zero reason. Edit: One of the things I learned quickly while working with LLMs, is that the quality of the user, the input, determines the quality of the output. Not everyone's input is of equal quality.

jllyhill 2mo ago

For anyone wondering, here's the author confirming it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48966159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48966159 And here's their Claude skill for writing https://github.com/AdrianMastronardi/bookwright https://github.com/AdrianMastronardi/bookwright