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Using LLMs at Oxide

(rfd.shared.oxide.computer)
694 points steveklabnik | 1 comments | 07 Dec 25 01:17 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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bryancoxwell ◴[07 Dec 25 01:57 UTC] No.46178509[source]▶
Find it interesting that the section about LLM’s tells when using it for writing is absolutely littered with emdashes
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bccdee ◴[07 Dec 25 02:24 UTC] No.46178632[source]▶
To be fair, LLMs usually use em-dashes correctly, whereas I think this document misuses them more often than not. For example:

> This can be extraordinarily powerful for summarizing documents — or of answering more specific questions of a large document like a datasheet or specification.

That dash shouldn't be there. That's not a parenthetical clause, that's an element in a list separated by "or." You can just remove the dash and the sentence becomes more correct.

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NobodyNada ◴[07 Dec 25 03:53 UTC] No.46179011[source]▶
LLMs also generally don't put spaces around em dashes — but a lot of human writers do.
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1. kimixa ◴[07 Dec 25 07:24 UTC] No.46179891{3}[source]▶
I think you're thinking of british-style "en-dashes" – which is often used for something that could have been separated by brackets but do have a space either side – rather than "em" dashes. They can also be used in a similar place as a colon – that is to separate two parts of a single sentence.

British users regularly use that sort of construct with "-" hyphens, simply because they're pretty much the same and a whole lot easier to type on a keyboard.