Your intellectual fly is open when you use an LLM to author a post (2025)
- ID
- 21960
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 06 Sep 2026, 7:56 PM
- Fetched
- 08 Sep 2026, 5:56 PM
- Provider
- Hacker News
- Category
- dev-community
- Original URL
- https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2025/12/05/your-intellectual-fly-is-open/
- Source URL
- https://hnrss.org/best
Summary
- Score
- 6.0
- Created
- 08 Sep 2026, 7:04 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_coderssaas_founders
What happened
Bryan Cantrill argues that using LLMs to author social media posts (especially on LinkedIn) is painfully obvious to readers, citing stylistic tells like emoji clusters, single-sentence paragraphs, 'it's not just... but also' constructions, and em-dashes. He contends the real damage isn't just embarrassment but loss of trust: when your writing doesn't sound like you, readers can't distinguish genuine content from 'generated fanfic' and stop reading. He still finds LLMs useful for brainstorming, comprehension, and editing—just not as primary authors.
Why it matters
If you're using LLMs to ghostwrite your professional posts, your audience likely already knows and is tuning out. The practical takeaway is to use LLMs as editors and brainstorming partners, not as authors, and to strip out the recognizable tells (em-dash overuse, emoji clusters, formulaic 'not just X but also Y' structures) before publishing anything under your own name.
Discussion angle
Where's the line between 'LLM-assisted editing' and 'LLM-authored content that erodes trust'—and can you realistically enforce it when LinkedIn itself is pushing AI rewriting at every prompt?