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hn_throwaway_99 • yesterday at 7:47 PM • 5 replies • view on HN

I honestly do not understand this at all. I never use AI to edit my writing, nor do I want to. To me that defeats the entire fucking point of writing.

It's like learning to play an instrument, and then using AI to make you sound better. Why bother to learn at all then??

I get I may be very much in the minority here, but I still hate it.


Replies

gfody • yesterday at 8:09 PM

> I may be very much in the minority here

you are not the minority, yours is the prevailing attitude on HN (and also the policy - AI-assisted writing is not welcome here) calling out AI isms and smells while ignoring the substance has become sport and an ugly look (IMO) especially with Pangram and sites like (https://www.salahadawi.com/hacker-news-ai-detector) automatically scanning everything that hits the frontpage (using the older/buggier version of Pangram no less)

smallnix • yesterday at 9:28 PM

Perhaps because her goal wasn't to become a better writer, but because she wanted to get her view out there?

ChrisMarshallNY • yesterday at 10:02 PM

Editing is critical. All professional writers get edited, and the quality of the editor can make all the difference. No writer likes being edited, but the editing can be the difference between success or failure.

I don't think that literary editors are doing a particularly good job, these days. That may be because they've all been fired.

LLMs can do a decent job of editing, but it imparts a "sameness" to the writing.

andy99 • yesterday at 10:33 PM

I’d go as far to say that no good writer uses AI for editing. It’s a tool for people that don’t know how to write, don’t know what good looks like, and are not confident enough to choose raw over soulless.

whycome • yesterday at 8:38 PM

> It's like learning to play an instrument, and then using AI to make you sound better. Why bother to learn at all then??

I mean having a producer cut multiple takes or remove errors is not exactly new. And I think it exactly proves why people use AI. They could have spent a lot more time getting a piece to where they want it (and they often know where they want it) but why not get there faster. Intelligence and speed are related.