6 ms·

Gruber shows here that he really doesn’t understand the basics of how LLM text generation works. It’s weird he picked this battle about the quality of writing i

Gruber shows here that he really doesn’t understand the basics of how LLM text generation works. It’s weird he picked this battle about the quality of writing in LLMs. Was he planning to use LLMs to write his articles? Well, not that weird actually. He just has a hard-on against anything that comes from the EU since Apple got in trouble. If the EU said tomorrow that they want peace in the world he’d be in Fox News the next day calling for an invasion. As a former reader of Daring Fireball, it’s just sad to see.

redfloatplane 1mo ago
Yes, I decided to stop reading his blog relatively recently after some extremely hot takes on EU policy. I don't feel his thoughts on the matter are particularly well-thought-out, and I feel like he's just stanning for Apple from his priors rather than from any grounding in reality. I dunno, I guess that's what you should expect from Gruber but these EU-bashing articles lowered the enjoyment I got from his blog underneath the bar for me.
- jorisw 1mo ago
  As an EU citizen I've found myself in agreement with everything he's written regarding EU policy
  - redfloatplane 1mo ago
    Good for you! As an EU citizen I have found myself in almost total disagreement with everything he's written regarding EU policy. Horses for courses.
- solid_fuel 1mo ago
  Freaking out about basic EU privacy and safety measures is always one of the biggest red flags that someone is becoming a politically motivated hack, especially when that someone lives in the US where there is an active fascist movement tearing apart the government.
  - redfloatplane 1mo ago
    But what if those measures might apply to your favourite multi-trillion-dollar globo-corp and cause them to nominally change their business practices? That's a step too far, I say.
    - solid_fuel 1mo ago
      Oh, well then it must be stopped by any means necessary of course! Thank god there are brave and concerned citizens like John Gruber, ready to hold the line against the tyranny of regulations. After all, if it wasn't for him who would ever speak up for the trillion dollar corporation? Without brave heros like him, these poor vulnerable corporations would be facing all sorts of attacks from evil regulatory organizations and their dastardly scientists. Just think of the profit - all those euros - that may be lost like chaff in the wind.
llm_nerd 1mo ago
Gruber went from the naively wrong claim that it would insert secret hidden characters (which would be trivial to remove, obviously), to quickly writing a giant essay as if he's an expert on LLMs. Like you said, he is strangely fixated on the EU, and is certain any EU rule is the worst thing in the universe, and this whole piece seems motivated by that guiding force. Further he later compares Gemini to Anthropic models, saying the latter "writes better", emptily ascribing this to the synthid stuff. I think he heard that Anthropic currently has superior models, but it certainly isn't because they "write better", and if anything Opus 5 now is virtually unintelligible, before the fingerprinting. The fingerprinting stuff sounds weird. If the EU wants it, it should be limited to the EU, and Anthropic is fully capable of doing that but clearly saw value in recognizing their own output. Is it going to destroy the quality of the output? We'll have to see, and this anti-EU piece, predicated on utter ignorance of the field, is not convincing.
- ragazzina 1mo ago
  How is he "strangely" fixated on EU? The EU tries to limit Apple's power, Gruber shills for Apple, Gruber is against the EU. Nothing strange about it.
  - llm_nerd 1mo ago
    I completely agree with you. But that doesn't change that Gruber's fixation on the EU is strange, specifically because he's so ego-tied to Apple that he strikes out like a untrained chihuahua at his list of Apple adversaries. He has done this for many years and it's just weird. It's like some weird k-pop stan sending death threats to someone that dissed their favourite singer. Just super strange stuff.

redfloatplane 1mo ago

Yes, I decided to stop reading his blog relatively recently after some extremely hot takes on EU policy. I don't feel his thoughts on the matter are particularly well-thought-out, and I feel like he's just stanning for Apple from his priors rather than from any grounding in reality. I dunno, I guess that's what you should expect from Gruber but these EU-bashing articles lowered the enjoyment I got from his blog underneath the bar for me.

jorisw 1mo ago
As an EU citizen I've found myself in agreement with everything he's written regarding EU policy
- redfloatplane 1mo ago
  Good for you! As an EU citizen I have found myself in almost total disagreement with everything he's written regarding EU policy. Horses for courses.
solid_fuel 1mo ago
Freaking out about basic EU privacy and safety measures is always one of the biggest red flags that someone is becoming a politically motivated hack, especially when that someone lives in the US where there is an active fascist movement tearing apart the government.
- redfloatplane 1mo ago
  But what if those measures might apply to your favourite multi-trillion-dollar globo-corp and cause them to nominally change their business practices? That's a step too far, I say.
  - solid_fuel 1mo ago
    Oh, well then it must be stopped by any means necessary of course! Thank god there are brave and concerned citizens like John Gruber, ready to hold the line against the tyranny of regulations. After all, if it wasn't for him who would ever speak up for the trillion dollar corporation? Without brave heros like him, these poor vulnerable corporations would be facing all sorts of attacks from evil regulatory organizations and their dastardly scientists. Just think of the profit - all those euros - that may be lost like chaff in the wind.

llm_nerd 1mo ago

Gruber went from the naively wrong claim that it would insert secret hidden characters (which would be trivial to remove, obviously), to quickly writing a giant essay as if he's an expert on LLMs. Like you said, he is strangely fixated on the EU, and is certain any EU rule is the worst thing in the universe, and this whole piece seems motivated by that guiding force. Further he later compares Gemini to Anthropic models, saying the latter "writes better", emptily ascribing this to the synthid stuff. I think he heard that Anthropic currently has superior models, but it certainly isn't because they "write better", and if anything Opus 5 now is virtually unintelligible, before the fingerprinting. The fingerprinting stuff sounds weird. If the EU wants it, it should be limited to the EU, and Anthropic is fully capable of doing that but clearly saw value in recognizing their own output. Is it going to destroy the quality of the output? We'll have to see, and this anti-EU piece, predicated on utter ignorance of the field, is not convincing.

ragazzina 1mo ago
How is he "strangely" fixated on EU? The EU tries to limit Apple's power, Gruber shills for Apple, Gruber is against the EU. Nothing strange about it.
- llm_nerd 1mo ago
  I completely agree with you. But that doesn't change that Gruber's fixation on the EU is strange, specifically because he's so ego-tied to Apple that he strikes out like a untrained chihuahua at his list of Apple adversaries. He has done this for many years and it's just weird. It's like some weird k-pop stan sending death threats to someone that dissed their favourite singer. Just super strange stuff.