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There’s a world of difference between using AI as an editor vs letting it write a whole essay for you. AI;DR is about the latter.

thatjoeoverthr 1mo ago
I'll push back and say it's the former. Good business writing is all about the editing, and autoregressive LLMs are terrible editors. They roll dice on every word and put the same tics on every text. They meander. Suppose you check something with ChatGPT, get nine hundred words, edit that down to three or even one and send that. You won't get AI;DR for "I checked, we're good."
- johnnyanmac 1mo ago
  >Suppose you check something with ChatGPT, get nine hundred words, edit that down to three or even one and send that. You won't get AI;DR for "I checked, we're good." Maybe. The issue here is we know most people are simply posting 900 words wholesale, maybe editing down 20-30 words to try and sweep some dust under the rug (meanwhile the trash is still fully featured on top of the carpet). For your style: I'm not a writer but I question if it's even more efficient to edit 900 AI words down to 100. I can see some people finding it easier to change other's words than generate your own ideas, but I don't think it's a majority. I certainly know it's more annoying to edit 900 lines of AI code into a succinct 100 line function/class.
teo_zero 1mo ago
> using AI as an editor vs letting it write a whole essay for you. AI;DR is about the latter I'm sure that's the intention, but the alarming trend, at least here on HN, is crying wolf at the first em-dash.
- account42 1mo ago
  Why is that alarming? Your immune system will also do some small amount of collateral damage to your own cells when its in a heightened state.
  - teo_zero 1mo ago
    While you went this road of the medical metaphor, taking antibiotics at the first suspect of sickness without checking what's really going on, is a sure way to help develop antibiotic-resistant viruses. Please note the key item is without checking. I'm not denying that many AI-generated documents are likely to be garbage. But refusing to read them just because of it will result in a lot of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

thatjoeoverthr 1mo ago

I'll push back and say it's the former. Good business writing is all about the editing, and autoregressive LLMs are terrible editors. They roll dice on every word and put the same tics on every text. They meander. Suppose you check something with ChatGPT, get nine hundred words, edit that down to three or even one and send that. You won't get AI;DR for "I checked, we're good."

johnnyanmac 1mo ago
>Suppose you check something with ChatGPT, get nine hundred words, edit that down to three or even one and send that. You won't get AI;DR for "I checked, we're good." Maybe. The issue here is we know most people are simply posting 900 words wholesale, maybe editing down 20-30 words to try and sweep some dust under the rug (meanwhile the trash is still fully featured on top of the carpet). For your style: I'm not a writer but I question if it's even more efficient to edit 900 AI words down to 100. I can see some people finding it easier to change other's words than generate your own ideas, but I don't think it's a majority. I certainly know it's more annoying to edit 900 lines of AI code into a succinct 100 line function/class.

teo_zero 1mo ago

> using AI as an editor vs letting it write a whole essay for you. AI;DR is about the latter I'm sure that's the intention, but the alarming trend, at least here on HN, is crying wolf at the first em-dash.

account42 1mo ago
Why is that alarming? Your immune system will also do some small amount of collateral damage to your own cells when its in a heightened state.
- teo_zero 1mo ago
  While you went this road of the medical metaphor, taking antibiotics at the first suspect of sickness without checking what's really going on, is a sure way to help develop antibiotic-resistant viruses. Please note the key item is without checking. I'm not denying that many AI-generated documents are likely to be garbage. But refusing to read them just because of it will result in a lot of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.