Isaac Su

I’ve been looking for ways to write more and better. Since my last “proper” piece, blogging has been one false start after another where I would embark on an idea but fail to develop it beyond much more than a handful of catchy phrases wrapped up in fillers.

I did, however, stumble upon the practice of free writing where you suspend all inhibitions (editorial or otherwise) and simply write whatever comes to mind for a set period of time. Along the way I found Dangerous Writing App and Nothing to Say. Both employ similar techniques to keep you writing, with the severest consequence being the complete deletion of your text if you stop writing for more than five seconds. I rose to their challenges and found that I could write Dangerously and I did have Something to say.

So that was fun. But I wanted something that could help me develop a habit, which led me to 4thewords. Rather than once-off writing sprints against a ticking timer, 4thewords cleverly frames the practice of writing in an extensive RPG experience where you defeat monsters by writing some amount of words within an allotted amount of time.

Defeating monsters earns you loot, increases your experience points and helps you progress on various quests. There’s also a daily streak tracker, bright casino-esque colours and animations, equipment that help you “fight” more effectively, and a fantasy character that you can customise with spoils from your battles.

I was skeptical at first, but having just completed the “Sign of the Times” side quest that required a ten-day streak of 444 words a day and 10,000 words in total, I think it works.

While only a fraction of what I write in their quaint little word processor will ever see the light of day, writing is writing. I’m hoping, over time, the consistent reps will increase my ability to elaborate and wordify ideas that I come upon. We’ll see.

I stumbled upon sippey.com. Five of the seven most recent posts there are links and quotes of interesting things. Also, no titles and just relative timestamps. Almost like some kind of log… on the web – like a weblog.

Like – that’s okay? I am so inspired to blog while I figure out essay writing on the side! Stay tuned.

There’s so much fear going around about how AI will take over the world and subjugate humanity with its impending superhuman powers.

Two essays that I read last week cut through the drivel with thoughtful analysis and reasoning, pushing back on the hyperbole peddled by those whose valuations depend on keeping everyone on edge.

• No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious by Ted Chiang (via A Lovely Harmless Monster)

• The Myth, the Mythos and the Man by Om Malik (via Daring Fireball)

Pause your notifications for half an hour, settle in with warm beverage and have a read. It’ll be worth it.

Someone on HN pointed out how clever it is, as an advertising strategy, for Claude Code to claim co-authorship over commits that it generates, given the exposure it would garner on GitHub and the like.

It reminded me of the Sent from my iPhone sign-off that Apple’s mobile Mail app would eagerly tack on to emails that you send.

Back when smartphones were first emerging, emailing from one meant that you were on the bleeding edge. But with a screen and keyboard no larger than a humble postcard, the writing rarely surpassed the courtesy or the polish found on one.

The solution we collectively settled on was to apologise for these shortcomings with signatures ranging from please excuse any typos and the brevity of this message to iPhone. iTypos. iApologize. Apple’s was an adaptation of Sent from my Blackberry. Characteristically restrained and implicit, it rode the iPhone’s dominance to cement itself as the cultural shorthand that we know and love.

While Co-authored-by: Claude Sonnet 5 almost certainly takes a page out of Apple’s branding playbook, we’re still discovering the breadth of concessions that it implicitly demands of its human collaborators.

Lately, an odd habit seems to have caught on among my peers when they’ve done something with an LLM.

When asked “how many support requests have we received about the new Feature X?”, they answer “according to [LLM tool], we’ve received 17 requests since it was released.” When posting a pitch document or a pull request, they volunteer “I asked [LLM tool] to write this for me” or “[LLM tool] wrote the unit tests”.

Odd. Like a writer disclosing the spellchecker they used alongside every piece, or a pilot announcing their version of avionics software over the PA while taxiing to the runway.

Why did I need to know that?

At first, I put it down to a bit of novelty and excitement. But as this wore on, I started to wonder why someone might feel the need to declare their use of an LLM.

Perhaps:

1. You believe in ascribing credit where credit is due. Using an LLM feels like cheating so disclosing it makes you feel less like an imposter for having produced something amazing.
2. The LLM’s performance exceeded your wildest expectations, ergo the work is impressive by association. Never mind that it is only 80 percent complete and no one knows which 20 percent is missing.
3. You outsourced the work to an LLM and didn’t bother to review it before hitting send. There may be mistakes but spotting them is left as an exercise for your recipients.
4. LLM use has been mandated by Up Above. Claiming you’ve used one (even if you haven’t) buys you a higher tolerance for sloppiness since you are presumably facilitating your own eventual redundancy.

For 2 to 4, all I can say is I’m sorry and I hope things work out for you.

But for the first reason, I’d challenge the notion of sharing credit with a tool, let alone feeling like a cheat for using one. Credit and accountability are two sides of the same coin. A tool can only take as much credit as it can be held accountable for, so crediting it inadvertently dilutes your own accountability for the work.

If you’ve created something profound or remarkable, take complete credit for it. If it misses the mark or turns out to be utter slop, also take full responsibility and improve from there. This is how every meaningful or valuable thing was ever created long before the advent of “AI can make mistakes” and will remain so long after, with or without LLMs.

HN discussion