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Upgrading Uber's MySQL Fleet

(www.uber.com)
234 points benocodes | 5 comments | 14 Oct 24 12:08 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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remon ◴[14 Oct 24 14:58 UTC] No.41838151[source]▶
It's sort of funny how can you immediately tell it's LLM sanitized/rewritten.
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jdbdndj ◴[14 Oct 24 15:09 UTC] No.41838261[source]▶
It reads like any of those tech blogs, using big words where not strictly necessary but also not wrong

Don't know about your LLM feeling

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1. est31 ◴[14 Oct 24 15:26 UTC] No.41838401[source]▶
It contains the word "delve", a word that got way more popular in use since the introduction of LLMs.

Also this paragraph sounds a lot like it has been written by LLMs, it's over-expressive:

    We systematically advanced through each tier, commencing from tier 5 and descending to tier 0. At every tier, we organized the clusters into manageable batches, ensuring a systematic and controlled transition process. Before embarking on each stage of the version upgrade, we actively involved the on-call teams responsible for each cluster, fostering collaboration and ensuring comprehensive oversight.
The paragraph uses "commencing from" together with "descending to". People would probably write something like "starting with". It shows how the LLM has no spatial understanding: tier 0 is not below or above tier 5, especially as the text has not introduced any such spatial ordering previously. And it gets worse: there is no prior mention of the word "tier" in the blog post. The earlier text speaks of stages, and lists 5 steps (without giving them any name, but the standard term is more like "step" instead of "tier").

There is more signs like "embark", or that specific use of "fostering collaboration" which goes beyond corporate-speak, it also sounds a lot like what an LLM would say. Apparently "safeguard" is also a word LLMs write very often.

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2. zx76 ◴[14 Oct 24 15:28 UTC] No.41838419[source]▶
Relevant pg thread on twitter: https://x.com/paulg/status/1777030573220933716
3. wongarsu ◴[14 Oct 24 16:00 UTC] No.41838778[source]▶
It doesn't get much better if you translate that paragraph from corpo speak to normal language: "We did the upgrade step by step. We did each step in batches. After we already decided how we were going to upgrade the clusters but before actually doing it we asked the teams responsible for keeping the clusters running for their opinion. This helped create an environment where we work together and helped monitoring the process"

I'm sure there are people who write like that. LLMs have to get it from somewhere. But that part especially is mostly empty phrases, and the meaning that is there isn't all that flattering

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4. ◴[14 Oct 24 16:54 UTC] No.41839348[source]▶
5. Groxx ◴[14 Oct 24 20:01 UTC] No.41841310[source]▶
People write like that to sound good to higher-ups who don't understand what's going on underneath.

There's A LOT of that kind of content to learn from. A brief glance at LinkedIn is all you need.