> I have a degree in linguistics, so I understand the power of immersion.
This seems to be the thrust of the whole post. I just don't think immersion has the same influence on mature people with a stable worldview. Why would you have to fight back? Who is so easily suggestible?
I can only speak for myself, but I don't even give human experts the benefit of the doubt on anything. Starting from a place of distrust has always been a part of my learning process. I only have so much time and effort in a day. When I'm tired or bored I naturally just... shamelessly ignore everything and everyone until I choose to re-engage (if ever). This isn't even defensiveness. It's just easier.
The premise of Nolan's position is Claude's language tic should not rub off on him, vs it's ok for Tolstoy's to do so.
I disagree. I think words are powerful, and when a word will be understood exactly as it's stated, then the value of the word is present. So while he might bemoan "load-bearing" (so would many of it's readers), that word in the right place will exactly communicate what he'd like. That enough reason to "earn it's keep" in prose.
it's not that load-bearing isn't doing the, well, load-bearing semantic work but it's both the lack of variability and lack of nuance hat makes it sound cheap. word choice is powerful - and in the same way, it can be nuanced
for eg. consider the synonyms for 'load-bearing'. if you want construction motifs: keystone, linchpin, cornerstone, foundational, structural. if you want earthy: bedrock, root. if you want ten-dollar words: axiomatic, sine qua non. if you just want to-the-point: vital, key, tenet, crucial
each of those words contain nuance. vital is used a lot in medicine (vital signs) so health, the heart, etc are evoked. pair it with specific usage like "this point is vital, the argument would die without it" and it rings different than "this point is load-bearing, the argument would be refuted without it"
you'd need to exist as a purely logical, probabilistic semantic parsing machine with no innate feeling or cultural attunement to prefer the lack of color to language. which, well, that's what LLMs are
I didn't say I'd prefer it. I said that's the only word that presented itself to the author, it provided value, and there's no reason to feel bad about it.
You're still the product of your environment. You'd not be using words like 'uncritical', 'agentic', 'maximalist', 'cringe', 'cultivating' etc were you not.
You're just as branded as an LLM user by your admission that you read hours of its output daily as any potential use of 'load-bearing'.
'Cringe' for instance, rose to popularity once, became cringe itself, fell to obscurity, and was only relatively recently restored to frequent use. 'load-bearing', 'circle back', and 'let's be honest' were all also once heavily used in particular communities and are therefore heavily represented in any algorithm supplied with this data that is trained to sound professional and authoritative.
These words and phrases are simply suffering the same oversaturation point that all the greats (groovy, radicle, spiffy, cool) do at some point. At some point, some population that is not native to the word (say adults for 'fire' or junior devs for 'circle back') start to use them and the original culture begins to see that the term has been diluted and is therefore disfavored for some new or re-used construction.
My point is that the phenomenon of choosing ones words as a reflection of one's environment is not a new thing. It's really nothing to do with the machine generation component. As when the masses refuse eloquence as a snub against the bourgeoisie it's not really about the money itself so much as signalling a particular identity. This is just the latest hotness to signal distance from.
> Cringe' for instance, rose to popularity once, became cringe itself, fell to obscurity, and was only relatively recently restored to frequent use
When were those changes supposed to happen? Cause saying cringe was never cringy in my neck of woods. And the word was in use the whole time.
> load-bearing', 'circle back', and 'let's be honest' were all also once heavily used in particular communities and are therefore heavily represented in any algorithm supplied with this data that is trained to sound professional and authoritative.
They dont sound professional nor authoritative. And never did. Load bearing was rarely use, circle back is just empty business jargon. Lets be honest is neither professional not authoritative. Never was. That is what people say when they are about to say something negative or ironic.
> My point is that the phenomenon of choosing ones words as a reflection of one's environment is not a new thing.
And that choice oftentimes used to flag you with negative implications ... precisedly because it made it clear which circles you are in.
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[ 6.8 ms ] story [ 38.9 ms ] threadThis seems to be the thrust of the whole post. I just don't think immersion has the same influence on mature people with a stable worldview. Why would you have to fight back? Who is so easily suggestible?
I can only speak for myself, but I don't even give human experts the benefit of the doubt on anything. Starting from a place of distrust has always been a part of my learning process. I only have so much time and effort in a day. When I'm tired or bored I naturally just... shamelessly ignore everything and everyone until I choose to re-engage (if ever). This isn't even defensiveness. It's just easier.
I disagree. I think words are powerful, and when a word will be understood exactly as it's stated, then the value of the word is present. So while he might bemoan "load-bearing" (so would many of it's readers), that word in the right place will exactly communicate what he'd like. That enough reason to "earn it's keep" in prose.
As does caveman.
We've been doing so since at least before the media excitement over Robert Galbraith being outed via software analysis as J.K. Rowling.
for eg. consider the synonyms for 'load-bearing'. if you want construction motifs: keystone, linchpin, cornerstone, foundational, structural. if you want earthy: bedrock, root. if you want ten-dollar words: axiomatic, sine qua non. if you just want to-the-point: vital, key, tenet, crucial
each of those words contain nuance. vital is used a lot in medicine (vital signs) so health, the heart, etc are evoked. pair it with specific usage like "this point is vital, the argument would die without it" and it rings different than "this point is load-bearing, the argument would be refuted without it"
you'd need to exist as a purely logical, probabilistic semantic parsing machine with no innate feeling or cultural attunement to prefer the lack of color to language. which, well, that's what LLMs are
I don't cringe when I know it went through their head, because they didn't literally copy-paste it.
It's just a side-effect of immersion. It's exactly a tic, and I don't frown when people tic.
Economists say "all things equal" (which they're never outside of economic models).
My vanity compels me to not use Claude's linguistic identity. It gets sooo boring.
And in spite of reading hours of Claude every day, I don't sound anything like Claude.
Maybe I'm not as impressionable as Nolan. Maybe I'm less aware of my own words.
I was cultivating a "make an effort when you write" mental space, and this area only got stronger in my brain with Claude.
I suppose it's a fight to preserve my own linguistic identity. Or maybe I have enough monologue to keep the pressure out always.
Also, unrelated, I already had one of Nolan's blog posts open in my most recent tab. It should prove a thing or two about authentic human voice.
You're just as branded as an LLM user by your admission that you read hours of its output daily as any potential use of 'load-bearing'.
'Cringe' for instance, rose to popularity once, became cringe itself, fell to obscurity, and was only relatively recently restored to frequent use. 'load-bearing', 'circle back', and 'let's be honest' were all also once heavily used in particular communities and are therefore heavily represented in any algorithm supplied with this data that is trained to sound professional and authoritative.
These words and phrases are simply suffering the same oversaturation point that all the greats (groovy, radicle, spiffy, cool) do at some point. At some point, some population that is not native to the word (say adults for 'fire' or junior devs for 'circle back') start to use them and the original culture begins to see that the term has been diluted and is therefore disfavored for some new or re-used construction.
My point is that the phenomenon of choosing ones words as a reflection of one's environment is not a new thing. It's really nothing to do with the machine generation component. As when the masses refuse eloquence as a snub against the bourgeoisie it's not really about the money itself so much as signalling a particular identity. This is just the latest hotness to signal distance from.
When were those changes supposed to happen? Cause saying cringe was never cringy in my neck of woods. And the word was in use the whole time.
> load-bearing', 'circle back', and 'let's be honest' were all also once heavily used in particular communities and are therefore heavily represented in any algorithm supplied with this data that is trained to sound professional and authoritative.
They dont sound professional nor authoritative. And never did. Load bearing was rarely use, circle back is just empty business jargon. Lets be honest is neither professional not authoritative. Never was. That is what people say when they are about to say something negative or ironic.
> My point is that the phenomenon of choosing ones words as a reflection of one's environment is not a new thing.
And that choice oftentimes used to flag you with negative implications ... precisedly because it made it clear which circles you are in.
how truly neat
what I read are words of wheat
what I write is more like meat
"Du bist was du isst" as Rammstein said in an extremely literal song.