On: ChatGPT Pulse

[latexr]

> Even current mediocre LLM are great at writing bad first drafts.

Anyone is great at creating a bad first draft. You don’t need help to create something bad, that’s why that’s a common tip. Dan Harmon is constantly hammering on that advice for writer’s block: “prove you’re a bad writer”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVqYUaUO1cQ

If you get an LLM to write a first draft for you, it’ll be full of ideas which aren’t yours which will condition your writing.

[CuriouslyC → latexr]

Little plot twist, you can pitch an LLM an idea for a scene, then tell it to interrogate you thoroughly for the details, then tell it to generate a clean, tight draft optimized for efficient use of language and readability, and you basically get your own ideas back but with a lot of the boring parts of writing already done.

[latexr → CuriouslyC]

Making your writing itself boring and the same as everyone’s who used that technique, transforming it into something no one will want to read anyway.

[CuriouslyC → latexr]

You pretty much jumped to the most negative possible interpretation. You think there isn't an editing process?

[latexr → CuriouslyC]

There is no editing process during a first draft, no. That’s the whole point of a draft, it’s a separate process from revisions and editing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drafting_(writing)

[CuriouslyC → latexr]

Were you trying to be intentionally obtuse? What was your goal with that reply? Are you trying to troll?

[cwyers → latexr]

`Anyone is great at creating a bad first draft`

Famously not so! Writer's block is real!

[latexr → cwyers]

The rest of the paragraph and the link address exactly that.

[eru → latexr]

There might be techniques that help overcome writer's block, sure. But it's still a real problem.

Getting an LLM to produce a not-so-bad first draft is just another technique.