Writing to Learn in LLM Age
Many of you know that what I’ve written so far are my thoughts on things that I observe. To me, they are original thoughts that, based on my readings, research, and YouTube videos, I have not seen them elsewhere before.
Writing, per my previous issue (Benefits of Writing Newsletter) is a learning process, together with sorting out my thoughts in a more logical manner. Given the originality of these thoughts, it’s a huge reason I do not get LLMs to do the writing for me i.e. I prefer to write the whole issue/article by myself. I highly doubt LLMs can state down for me my thought process, what are the points and sub-points that lead to the main idea I want to share.
An analogy is you can see LLMs as a map. My ideas and thoughts are building something that is outside the boundaries of the map given its originality. (I do agree “originality” is a contentious point too, since “original” means others have not thought of it, or have thought of it but not found on the internet.) If that is the case, there is a limitation to how the map can direct you to the new place. Similarly, there is a limit to what the LLMs can help me to write on. Moreover, I tend to find LLMs-generated writing is very verbose and not concise enough.
But I do want to point out before I get painted as against LLMs for writing. LLMs are pretty suitable for certain writing that is pretty established, for instance, non-disclosure agreements, investment contracts, proposals, call for quotations, etc. And during my writing, when I need some research to be done, I will ask LLMs instead.
The point I want to drive at here is that if you are someone who is writing to learn and sort out your own ideas, I do not think LLMs can help much with writing except for researching topics and sub-topics for the idea you are writing on, but LLMs are suitable for other kinds of writing and also learning as well.
From another perspective, if someone does share that they use LLMs to write their article or books (which seem to be common these days), I will take it with a pinch of salt and prefer to get an evaluation copy before I decide to support the author with a purchase. :)
What are your thoughts on this? Will love to hear how you use LLMs for your writing and how you find it so far. Thanks for reading till here!
In case this is the first time you are here, I have a blog site for long posts. Below are a few recent posts. And if you feel generous today, can make an anonymous donation here without signing up for an account (from what I know). Thank you for your support! :)
Blog posts:
Incorporating LLM into your writing workflow as an editor can be helpful, and arguably, help you further improve your writing. In a sense, an AI writing-tutor of sorts.
Funny thing i'm also reading "Writing to Learn" by William Zinsser the guy who's famous for his book called "On Writing Well". He's confessed he hates to write like me but see it as way to learn things by learning to write. By just offloading the writing part to ChatGPT, we missed the opportunities to learn in any particular subject matter as well as developing our own voice. Which is sorely needed in this day and age.