I don't want to read what you didn't write

As I have been saying for years:

Writing is fundamentally the transfer of information from your brain to my brain. If you have 1000 bits of semantic information you want to transfer, you can't give 300 bits of semantic information to an LLM and have it fill in the remaining 700, because it doesn't know what those 700 bits are. If it's able to guess those 700 bits correctly, then they aren't true semantic information, and you really only have 300 bits you want to transfer. You might as well transfer those bits to me directly, rather than having the LLM add on an extra superfluous 700 bits that I then have to filter out.

It's funny, i push back on pull requests because there is too much description now - a 20 line change has pages and pages of generated description, rationalisation for why it is safe, defense of each design decision, analysis of risks and side effects. People are indignant, you're rejecting my change because there is too much documentation? And my response is, I don't have time to read it and you put me in the position where I can't afford not to - because approving the PR implies I did and accepted it. The investment to read all that for the value of a code change that I'm one prompt away from doing myself if I cared is just not high enough. So it's rejected.

I appreciate the direction of this article, and commend the author on publishing work, but the first sentence in the first paragraph is exactly what they lament.

> A pattern I see is that people use AI to build something new, then they use AI to retrospectively summarize what they have already built into a design document. Reading a document like this isn’t just difficult—it is punishing.

These last few days, there has been a small stream of blogposts on HN expressing similar things, and I have enjoyed them all.

My question recently has been how to broach this subject with colleagues who really enjoy producing prose with AI. There is not yet a better cultural shorthand for this sort of thing than "slop" which is a harsh-sounding word and itself sort of a thought-terminating cliché. "I don't want to read what you didn't write" is maybe closer — but it needs a pithier and somewhat more encouraging encapsulation, like "I want to hear it from you".

Has anyone had good experiences setting up professional boundaries or team norms around AI-written docs?

It's tricky because I don't want to write what no one is going to read (but that for some reason I'm required to write).

“Reading a document like this isn’t just difficult—it is punishing.”

I’d be curious whether the author composed this sentence himself or it was the output of AI. Personally I often find myself “it’s not X it’s Y” and then recoiling in disgust and rephrasing it simply because AI has made it so grating from overuse.

This sentiment gets echoed over and over. While I can certainly see the value in human-created creative works, if the subject is pure facts, there are only so many ways to state the facts without being caught in the weeds and missing your entire point.

Moreover, people are finding it hard to differentiate what is an is not AI-generated with newer models, often attributing original work with those of LLMs. It has just become an easy scapegoat for lazy comprehension and a desire to do less. You are jumping at AI boogeymen.

Just about the only thing here I can level with you on is, yes, AI is far from perfect and will continue to advance. Otherwise, so much of this reads as fruity prose to excuse apathy.