Large Language Manglers

For nearly two centuries, we’ve embraced the relentless speeding up of communication by mechanical means, believing that the industrial ideals of efficiency, productivity, and optimization are as applicable to speech as to the manufacture of widgets. More recently, we’ve embraced the mechanization of editing, allowing software to replace people in choosing the information we see (and don’t see). With LLMs, the industrialization ethic moves at last into the creation of the very content of our speech.

All this posting is tiring. If only we could have something do it for us!

Having an app fiddle with your writing now seems normal, even necessary given how much time we all spend messaging, posting, and commenting. The endless labor of self-expression cries out for the efficiency of automation.

Which leads to the “industrialization of human communication”.

LLMs give us ventriloquism in reverse. The mechanical dummy speaks through your mouth.