I was trying to work out yesterday why LLM users annoy me so much and it came back to my basic notion of rudeness: impolite behaviour stems from assuming that your time is worth more than other people's.
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I was trying to work out yesterday why LLM users annoy me so much and it came back to my basic notion of rudeness: impolite behaviour stems from assuming that your time is worth more than other people's.
If someone doesn't bother to write coherent words in a message to you so that they can type faster at the cost of your comprehension speed, they're trading your time for theirs and that's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to create more words from fewer ideas, that saves them time in careful expression at the cost of more work for you. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write code that doesn't work and expects other people to help debugging it, then they're saying that it isn't worth their time to learn but it is worth your time to help them. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write some code that looks like it works and expects you to put effort into reviewing a PR, again, they're saving work for themselves at the expense of your time. That's rude.
Almost all LLM uses are like this: they save the user time (at least, in the short term) by making more work for someone else. They're machines optimised for creating rudeness.
There are a bunch of places where you do trade different people's time. In particular, if tasks A and B need doing, but person 1 can do either and person 2 can do only task B, then it makes sense for person 2 to do task B so that person 1 can do task A. That's not because person 1's time is more valuable, it's because person 1 doing task A is more valuable. It's not that your time is more valuable than the cleaner's time, but the cleaner doing their job means that you can spend my time doing more valuable tasks.
@david_chisnall this observation reminds me of @glyph 's article here: https://blog.glyph.im/2026/06/adversarial-communication.html
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I was trying to work out yesterday why LLM users annoy me so much and it came back to my basic notion of rudeness: impolite behaviour stems from assuming that your time is worth more than other people's.
If someone doesn't bother to write coherent words in a message to you so that they can type faster at the cost of your comprehension speed, they're trading your time for theirs and that's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to create more words from fewer ideas, that saves them time in careful expression at the cost of more work for you. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write code that doesn't work and expects other people to help debugging it, then they're saying that it isn't worth their time to learn but it is worth your time to help them. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write some code that looks like it works and expects you to put effort into reviewing a PR, again, they're saving work for themselves at the expense of your time. That's rude.
Almost all LLM uses are like this: they save the user time (at least, in the short term) by making more work for someone else. They're machines optimised for creating rudeness.
There are a bunch of places where you do trade different people's time. In particular, if tasks A and B need doing, but person 1 can do either and person 2 can do only task B, then it makes sense for person 2 to do task B so that person 1 can do task A. That's not because person 1's time is more valuable, it's because person 1 doing task A is more valuable. It's not that your time is more valuable than the cleaner's time, but the cleaner doing their job means that you can spend my time doing more valuable tasks.
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I was trying to work out yesterday why LLM users annoy me so much and it came back to my basic notion of rudeness: impolite behaviour stems from assuming that your time is worth more than other people's.
If someone doesn't bother to write coherent words in a message to you so that they can type faster at the cost of your comprehension speed, they're trading your time for theirs and that's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to create more words from fewer ideas, that saves them time in careful expression at the cost of more work for you. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write code that doesn't work and expects other people to help debugging it, then they're saying that it isn't worth their time to learn but it is worth your time to help them. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write some code that looks like it works and expects you to put effort into reviewing a PR, again, they're saving work for themselves at the expense of your time. That's rude.
Almost all LLM uses are like this: they save the user time (at least, in the short term) by making more work for someone else. They're machines optimised for creating rudeness.
There are a bunch of places where you do trade different people's time. In particular, if tasks A and B need doing, but person 1 can do either and person 2 can do only task B, then it makes sense for person 2 to do task B so that person 1 can do task A. That's not because person 1's time is more valuable, it's because person 1 doing task A is more valuable. It's not that your time is more valuable than the cleaner's time, but the cleaner doing their job means that you can spend my time doing more valuable tasks.
@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange This 100% lines up with the people I've encountered who are loud about AI usage. There's a consistent lack of kindness and empathy (which, when you know how these things work and what they need to do in order to work, yeah, lacking empathy is a requirement). When you call them out on their bad behavior, they act exactly how someone being rude behaves: they're offended because they can't possibly be doing anything wrong (from their perspective), how dare you criticize them?
sigh, it's like my mother all over again -
I was trying to work out yesterday why LLM users annoy me so much and it came back to my basic notion of rudeness: impolite behaviour stems from assuming that your time is worth more than other people's.
If someone doesn't bother to write coherent words in a message to you so that they can type faster at the cost of your comprehension speed, they're trading your time for theirs and that's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to create more words from fewer ideas, that saves them time in careful expression at the cost of more work for you. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write code that doesn't work and expects other people to help debugging it, then they're saying that it isn't worth their time to learn but it is worth your time to help them. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write some code that looks like it works and expects you to put effort into reviewing a PR, again, they're saving work for themselves at the expense of your time. That's rude.
Almost all LLM uses are like this: they save the user time (at least, in the short term) by making more work for someone else. They're machines optimised for creating rudeness.
There are a bunch of places where you do trade different people's time. In particular, if tasks A and B need doing, but person 1 can do either and person 2 can do only task B, then it makes sense for person 2 to do task B so that person 1 can do task A. That's not because person 1's time is more valuable, it's because person 1 doing task A is more valuable. It's not that your time is more valuable than the cleaner's time, but the cleaner doing their job means that you can spend my time doing more valuable tasks.
@david_chisnall
The whole notion of taking others into account seems to be lost on lots of people. If one doesn't think about your time at all, one can't be blamed for assuming anything about it... (but still be rightfully called an arsehole ;-)) -
I was trying to work out yesterday why LLM users annoy me so much and it came back to my basic notion of rudeness: impolite behaviour stems from assuming that your time is worth more than other people's.
If someone doesn't bother to write coherent words in a message to you so that they can type faster at the cost of your comprehension speed, they're trading your time for theirs and that's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to create more words from fewer ideas, that saves them time in careful expression at the cost of more work for you. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write code that doesn't work and expects other people to help debugging it, then they're saying that it isn't worth their time to learn but it is worth your time to help them. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write some code that looks like it works and expects you to put effort into reviewing a PR, again, they're saving work for themselves at the expense of your time. That's rude.
Almost all LLM uses are like this: they save the user time (at least, in the short term) by making more work for someone else. They're machines optimised for creating rudeness.
There are a bunch of places where you do trade different people's time. In particular, if tasks A and B need doing, but person 1 can do either and person 2 can do only task B, then it makes sense for person 2 to do task B so that person 1 can do task A. That's not because person 1's time is more valuable, it's because person 1 doing task A is more valuable. It's not that your time is more valuable than the cleaner's time, but the cleaner doing their job means that you can spend my time doing more valuable tasks.
That which we find annoying in others - they find annoying in us.
Really easy test: did the critics take linear algebra. If not, they aren’t talking about AI
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I was trying to work out yesterday why LLM users annoy me so much and it came back to my basic notion of rudeness: impolite behaviour stems from assuming that your time is worth more than other people's.
If someone doesn't bother to write coherent words in a message to you so that they can type faster at the cost of your comprehension speed, they're trading your time for theirs and that's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to create more words from fewer ideas, that saves them time in careful expression at the cost of more work for you. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write code that doesn't work and expects other people to help debugging it, then they're saying that it isn't worth their time to learn but it is worth your time to help them. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write some code that looks like it works and expects you to put effort into reviewing a PR, again, they're saving work for themselves at the expense of your time. That's rude.
Almost all LLM uses are like this: they save the user time (at least, in the short term) by making more work for someone else. They're machines optimised for creating rudeness.
There are a bunch of places where you do trade different people's time. In particular, if tasks A and B need doing, but person 1 can do either and person 2 can do only task B, then it makes sense for person 2 to do task B so that person 1 can do task A. That's not because person 1's time is more valuable, it's because person 1 doing task A is more valuable. It's not that your time is more valuable than the cleaner's time, but the cleaner doing their job means that you can spend my time doing more valuable tasks.
@david_chisnall this is all of LinkedIn.
“Look at this post [A]I have written to make me look good.”
I greatly improved my quality of life by deleting that app.
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I was trying to work out yesterday why LLM users annoy me so much and it came back to my basic notion of rudeness: impolite behaviour stems from assuming that your time is worth more than other people's.
If someone doesn't bother to write coherent words in a message to you so that they can type faster at the cost of your comprehension speed, they're trading your time for theirs and that's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to create more words from fewer ideas, that saves them time in careful expression at the cost of more work for you. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write code that doesn't work and expects other people to help debugging it, then they're saying that it isn't worth their time to learn but it is worth your time to help them. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write some code that looks like it works and expects you to put effort into reviewing a PR, again, they're saving work for themselves at the expense of your time. That's rude.
Almost all LLM uses are like this: they save the user time (at least, in the short term) by making more work for someone else. They're machines optimised for creating rudeness.
There are a bunch of places where you do trade different people's time. In particular, if tasks A and B need doing, but person 1 can do either and person 2 can do only task B, then it makes sense for person 2 to do task B so that person 1 can do task A. That's not because person 1's time is more valuable, it's because person 1 doing task A is more valuable. It's not that your time is more valuable than the cleaner's time, but the cleaner doing their job means that you can spend my time doing more valuable tasks.
@david_chisnall That's an excellent way of putting it, David. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
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@david_chisnall
If a client uses a generative model to extrude a guide image and expects you to put effort into redrawing it to launder their plagiarism, they're saving work for themselves at the expense of your time. That's rude.@KronoGarrett @david_chisnall only if they expect to pay you less because of said extrusion. If they’re just using it to provide an example of what they’re looking for then I’d say it’s no more rude than sending any other example. Still hate it because of all the other problems with LLMs but I wouldn’t call that rude per se.
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I was trying to work out yesterday why LLM users annoy me so much and it came back to my basic notion of rudeness: impolite behaviour stems from assuming that your time is worth more than other people's.
If someone doesn't bother to write coherent words in a message to you so that they can type faster at the cost of your comprehension speed, they're trading your time for theirs and that's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to create more words from fewer ideas, that saves them time in careful expression at the cost of more work for you. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write code that doesn't work and expects other people to help debugging it, then they're saying that it isn't worth their time to learn but it is worth your time to help them. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write some code that looks like it works and expects you to put effort into reviewing a PR, again, they're saving work for themselves at the expense of your time. That's rude.
Almost all LLM uses are like this: they save the user time (at least, in the short term) by making more work for someone else. They're machines optimised for creating rudeness.
There are a bunch of places where you do trade different people's time. In particular, if tasks A and B need doing, but person 1 can do either and person 2 can do only task B, then it makes sense for person 2 to do task B so that person 1 can do task A. That's not because person 1's time is more valuable, it's because person 1 doing task A is more valuable. It's not that your time is more valuable than the cleaner's time, but the cleaner doing their job means that you can spend my time doing more valuable tasks.
@david_chisnall this is not just impolite, it’s called “externalizing the costs” and it’s the root of extractive capitalism, and therefore of all evil
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@KronoGarrett @david_chisnall only if they expect to pay you less because of said extrusion. If they’re just using it to provide an example of what they’re looking for then I’d say it’s no more rude than sending any other example. Still hate it because of all the other problems with LLMs but I wouldn’t call that rude per se.
@pier @david_chisnall It shows that the client doesn’t really care about the art or artist…
Digging through an artbook, writing a few sentences, stick figures, hero forge, etc is all the client needs to do. That’s not much work at all, but it matters.
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I was trying to work out yesterday why LLM users annoy me so much and it came back to my basic notion of rudeness: impolite behaviour stems from assuming that your time is worth more than other people's.
If someone doesn't bother to write coherent words in a message to you so that they can type faster at the cost of your comprehension speed, they're trading your time for theirs and that's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to create more words from fewer ideas, that saves them time in careful expression at the cost of more work for you. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write code that doesn't work and expects other people to help debugging it, then they're saying that it isn't worth their time to learn but it is worth your time to help them. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write some code that looks like it works and expects you to put effort into reviewing a PR, again, they're saving work for themselves at the expense of your time. That's rude.
Almost all LLM uses are like this: they save the user time (at least, in the short term) by making more work for someone else. They're machines optimised for creating rudeness.
There are a bunch of places where you do trade different people's time. In particular, if tasks A and B need doing, but person 1 can do either and person 2 can do only task B, then it makes sense for person 2 to do task B so that person 1 can do task A. That's not because person 1's time is more valuable, it's because person 1 doing task A is more valuable. It's not that your time is more valuable than the cleaner's time, but the cleaner doing their job means that you can spend my time doing more valuable tasks.
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I was trying to work out yesterday why LLM users annoy me so much and it came back to my basic notion of rudeness: impolite behaviour stems from assuming that your time is worth more than other people's.
If someone doesn't bother to write coherent words in a message to you so that they can type faster at the cost of your comprehension speed, they're trading your time for theirs and that's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to create more words from fewer ideas, that saves them time in careful expression at the cost of more work for you. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write code that doesn't work and expects other people to help debugging it, then they're saying that it isn't worth their time to learn but it is worth your time to help them. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write some code that looks like it works and expects you to put effort into reviewing a PR, again, they're saving work for themselves at the expense of your time. That's rude.
Almost all LLM uses are like this: they save the user time (at least, in the short term) by making more work for someone else. They're machines optimised for creating rudeness.
There are a bunch of places where you do trade different people's time. In particular, if tasks A and B need doing, but person 1 can do either and person 2 can do only task B, then it makes sense for person 2 to do task B so that person 1 can do task A. That's not because person 1's time is more valuable, it's because person 1 doing task A is more valuable. It's not that your time is more valuable than the cleaner's time, but the cleaner doing their job means that you can spend my time doing more valuable tasks.
@david_chisnall You encapsulate much that is badly wrong with many people these days because of too much time inside tech.
Playing games of Go now - a deeply complex game requiring thought and analysis to play well - most players play insanely fast, rarely speak and just do not care in the slightest that they are playing another human.
It is very chilling how deep the lack of humanity can be.
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@KronoGarrett @david_chisnall only if they expect to pay you less because of said extrusion. If they’re just using it to provide an example of what they’re looking for then I’d say it’s no more rude than sending any other example. Still hate it because of all the other problems with LLMs but I wouldn’t call that rude per se.
@pier @david_chisnall I don’t think you understand just how insulting showing slop to an artist is. It’s like someone bringing in the reanimated corpse of their mother and saying “can you make her look natural, my family reunion is next week.”
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I was trying to work out yesterday why LLM users annoy me so much and it came back to my basic notion of rudeness: impolite behaviour stems from assuming that your time is worth more than other people's.
If someone doesn't bother to write coherent words in a message to you so that they can type faster at the cost of your comprehension speed, they're trading your time for theirs and that's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to create more words from fewer ideas, that saves them time in careful expression at the cost of more work for you. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write code that doesn't work and expects other people to help debugging it, then they're saying that it isn't worth their time to learn but it is worth your time to help them. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write some code that looks like it works and expects you to put effort into reviewing a PR, again, they're saving work for themselves at the expense of your time. That's rude.
Almost all LLM uses are like this: they save the user time (at least, in the short term) by making more work for someone else. They're machines optimised for creating rudeness.
There are a bunch of places where you do trade different people's time. In particular, if tasks A and B need doing, but person 1 can do either and person 2 can do only task B, then it makes sense for person 2 to do task B so that person 1 can do task A. That's not because person 1's time is more valuable, it's because person 1 doing task A is more valuable. It's not that your time is more valuable than the cleaner's time, but the cleaner doing their job means that you can spend my time doing more valuable tasks.
@david_chisnall Borrowing terminology from distributed denial of service, you could call LLMs a kind of amplification attack.
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I was trying to work out yesterday why LLM users annoy me so much and it came back to my basic notion of rudeness: impolite behaviour stems from assuming that your time is worth more than other people's.
If someone doesn't bother to write coherent words in a message to you so that they can type faster at the cost of your comprehension speed, they're trading your time for theirs and that's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to create more words from fewer ideas, that saves them time in careful expression at the cost of more work for you. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write code that doesn't work and expects other people to help debugging it, then they're saying that it isn't worth their time to learn but it is worth your time to help them. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write some code that looks like it works and expects you to put effort into reviewing a PR, again, they're saving work for themselves at the expense of your time. That's rude.
Almost all LLM uses are like this: they save the user time (at least, in the short term) by making more work for someone else. They're machines optimised for creating rudeness.
There are a bunch of places where you do trade different people's time. In particular, if tasks A and B need doing, but person 1 can do either and person 2 can do only task B, then it makes sense for person 2 to do task B so that person 1 can do task A. That's not because person 1's time is more valuable, it's because person 1 doing task A is more valuable. It's not that your time is more valuable than the cleaner's time, but the cleaner doing their job means that you can spend my time doing more valuable tasks.
@david_chisnall my boss is very happy with his 4x efficiency using AI. He also seems to be pissed about how long it takes me to respond. (I've started asking for the prompts, which seems effed up)
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Heh:
"If someone uses an LLM to write some code that looks like it works and expects you to put effort into reviewing a PR, again, they're saving work for themselves at the expense of your time. That's rude."
Heh. If you can't test your own code, then you're not a real programmer. You're not a programmer and I don't want to work with you. Ugh.
@beeftacos
I've hand written a simple patch. I've been explicit that I don't know what I'm doing, and while it works in basic (mine) usage, I don't know how to test it beyond existing test suite, and what implications it may have on rest of code or performance. I am not a programmer, and I'm the first to admit it.
It was accepted, possibly slightly modified.
@david_chisnall -
@beeftacos
I've hand written a simple patch. I've been explicit that I don't know what I'm doing, and while it works in basic (mine) usage, I don't know how to test it beyond existing test suite, and what implications it may have on rest of code or performance. I am not a programmer, and I'm the first to admit it.
It was accepted, possibly slightly modified.
@david_chisnall@beeftacos
Arguments I'm currently using is that creators of LLMs have subtlety and consideration of strip mining operations, and any and all usage of their tools makes their number go up and validates their business plans/practices.
@david_chisnall -
@beeftacos
Arguments I'm currently using is that creators of LLMs have subtlety and consideration of strip mining operations, and any and all usage of their tools makes their number go up and validates their business plans/practices.
@david_chisnall@beeftacos
Even if the tools worked perfectly well - that doesn't change the above.
@david_chisnall -
I was trying to work out yesterday why LLM users annoy me so much and it came back to my basic notion of rudeness: impolite behaviour stems from assuming that your time is worth more than other people's.
If someone doesn't bother to write coherent words in a message to you so that they can type faster at the cost of your comprehension speed, they're trading your time for theirs and that's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to create more words from fewer ideas, that saves them time in careful expression at the cost of more work for you. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write code that doesn't work and expects other people to help debugging it, then they're saying that it isn't worth their time to learn but it is worth your time to help them. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write some code that looks like it works and expects you to put effort into reviewing a PR, again, they're saving work for themselves at the expense of your time. That's rude.
Almost all LLM uses are like this: they save the user time (at least, in the short term) by making more work for someone else. They're machines optimised for creating rudeness.
There are a bunch of places where you do trade different people's time. In particular, if tasks A and B need doing, but person 1 can do either and person 2 can do only task B, then it makes sense for person 2 to do task B so that person 1 can do task A. That's not because person 1's time is more valuable, it's because person 1 doing task A is more valuable. It's not that your time is more valuable than the cleaner's time, but the cleaner doing their job means that you can spend my time doing more valuable tasks.
@david_chisnall AI enthusiasts and people who wish they could own slaves: Venn diagram is almost a circle.
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I was trying to work out yesterday why LLM users annoy me so much and it came back to my basic notion of rudeness: impolite behaviour stems from assuming that your time is worth more than other people's.
If someone doesn't bother to write coherent words in a message to you so that they can type faster at the cost of your comprehension speed, they're trading your time for theirs and that's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to create more words from fewer ideas, that saves them time in careful expression at the cost of more work for you. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write code that doesn't work and expects other people to help debugging it, then they're saying that it isn't worth their time to learn but it is worth your time to help them. That's rude.
If someone uses an LLM to write some code that looks like it works and expects you to put effort into reviewing a PR, again, they're saving work for themselves at the expense of your time. That's rude.
Almost all LLM uses are like this: they save the user time (at least, in the short term) by making more work for someone else. They're machines optimised for creating rudeness.
There are a bunch of places where you do trade different people's time. In particular, if tasks A and B need doing, but person 1 can do either and person 2 can do only task B, then it makes sense for person 2 to do task B so that person 1 can do task A. That's not because person 1's time is more valuable, it's because person 1 doing task A is more valuable. It's not that your time is more valuable than the cleaner's time, but the cleaner doing their job means that you can spend my time doing more valuable tasks.
@david_chisnall Not directly related to LLM use but very much related to who does the work: In a communications training I participated in some time ago for me the most impactful thing the teacher said to us was:
"Someone always has to do the work that a message gets understood. It can be either the sender or the receiver. If you are the sender, do you want to leave it up to the receiver, who usually has less incentive to do the work?"
Now this is my north star when writing emails, bulletins, news, etc. You can use LLM to help you with this process (not saying you should use it) but you cannot outsource the provess to an LLM or you are actually moving the work back to the receiver.
