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Embeddings are underrated (2024)

(technicalwriting.dev)
484 points jxmorris12 | 1 comments | 12 May 25 15:05 UTC | HN request time: 1.526s | source
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bawolff ◴[12 May 25 17:25 UTC] No.43965408[source]▶
> I could tell you exactly how I think we might advance the state of the art in technical writing with embeddings, but where’s the fun in that? You now know why they’re such an interesting and useful new tool in the technical writer toolbox… go connect the rest of the dots yourself!

Wow, that's bold. I guess "good" technical writing no longer includes a thesis statement.

Seriously though, why would this be useful for technical writing? Sure you could make some similar pages widget however i dont think i've ever wanted that when reading technical docs, let alone writing them.

replies(2): >>43965495 #>>43966509 #
1. kaycebasques ◴[12 May 25 19:09 UTC] No.43966509[source]▶
> I guess "good" technical writing no longer includes a thesis statement.

Thesis is outlined in the second paragraph:

> What embeddings offer to technical writers is the ability to discover connections between texts at previously impossible scales.

I think it's fair, however, to say that this post is ineffective because it does not provide concrete examples of the thesis in action. My only excuse is that I never intended for this to be a standalone post but life got in the way (in the best possible way!) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43964584

> why would this be useful for technical writing?

You're not going to like this answer, because it's also vague. There are 3 intractable challenges in technical writing. Embeddings can help us make progress on all 3: https://technicalwriting.dev/strategy/challenges.html

See also https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/8057/