A couple of highlights on AI and writing:

🔗 Slop Readers, Jacob Falkovich

Here’s the trick: the substance comes from volition, and the volition, for now, is all human. LLMs can’t write good if you tell them “write something for my catering page”. You’re not giving them any substance, and they won’t bring their own. LLMs write fine enough if you tell them exactly what you want to say and to whom and how, the whole structure of argument and motivation and your personal connection to it. But if you get that far, why let Claude be the only one who hears what you wanted to say? Just publish the prompt.

🔗 We Need a Name for This, Because Armin Is Putting…, Drew Breunig

We need a name for this, because Armin is putting his finger on a problem that’s everywhere: people running their writing through an LLM because they think it makes it clearer, when in actuality it sands off all the detail.