Enabling more people to solve more problems is a great benefit to everyone, even people who don't like AI. I'm using AI to solve problems for me, and I hope more people continue this trend.
I wish AI solved the problem of writing like shit. It REALLY bothers me how bad AI writing is and I'm not at all negative about the technology itself. I love AI, I just don't like the side effect of all this garbage content being regurgitated on the internet right now.
This is exactly the type of niche service that modern technology enables. Without that tech (3D printing, the internet, AI) things like this are simply more likely to just not exist because it would be impossible to make the economics work.
Pun notwithstanding, what a fun itch to scratch! A clever single-user solution becomes it's own industry. I'd love to repeat this sort of growth myself, and find such clever solutions to real world problems.
It’s pretty easy to figure out what DLE was about from the context clues in the article. Knowing that it means discoid lupus erythematosus and the detailed definition wouldn’t have added much imo. In fact I didn’t even care to look it up until I read your comment.
if you're referring to DLE, from the second paragraph:
> When she was diagnosed with DLE, discoid lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune condition where the immune system attacks the skin on the nose and sunlight makes it worse
edit: ah, just saw a comment from the author indicating they added that post-hoc
The idea is good and cute (the AI writing is a slog to read though). But I wince a bit at seeing a pit with something looking like a mouth guard at a glance, as if they're not scary enough already.
I've heard of 3D prints being not-food-safe for a host of reasons, but lead is a new one. How does lead get into the filament? Care to share an article?
DLE, I had never heard of it. Something like lupus and it needs protection from the sun. One smart guy to come up with a simple solution.. Very good use of 3D printer.
Author here. Thanks everyone for being mean, I mean that in the best way :)
Fair points. I’m a designer, not a writer, so I used an LLM to help write it. The story and the dogs are real. After reading the comments I removed the parts that felt off and defined DLE (discoid lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune skin condition made worse by sun).
My dog Billie has it, and that’s what started all this. I made the cover for her, shared it free, and it grew from there.
Thanks - and congratulations.
One question. What is this UV-sensitive filament, and does it really change color in both directions as quickly as the video shows?
I would be concerned about the lead in 3D prints. Even if you take proper precautions (which is very difficult because it's the material in the extruder and filament) they are not food safe and easily grow bacteria.
This dude invented not one but multiple dog health care products ... with no animal product design background whatsoever! Then (with no business background) he started an entire company helping hundreds of dogs all over the world.
Maybe instead of expecting everyone to be good at everything, we cut this guy a little slack and let him use AI to help write?
The AI didnt help him write. The AI wrote very annoying prose. Seemingly everyone was completely capable of writing long winded comments, rants, and rambles before AI. They can do it after too just fine.
But, did AI actually _help_ in this specific phrase? I think it's OK to point out the quirks (and even drawbacks) of AI, even if we generally support the underlying motions of the person using it.
My assumption is that every LLM-written article would just not have been written otherwise. That is a net good. It's also true that it's grating to read LLM-written prose.
Am I utterly mistaken or was LLM-written prose more tolerable when it was GPT-4o and Opus 3.x writing it?
Unnecessary comment. It is really heartwarming to see an individual do something in his spare time that helps 100s of being that can't speak for themselves.
I wish we could put the paw-litics aside and not be so snoot-y about the AI writing and focus on the awesomeness of this idea. Honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see it in re-tail. You’re barking up the right tree and I wish you success and a lot of kibble money.
If nobody complains, nothing changes. At the very least Claude's output should have been edited and improved, but it reads like it was mostly copy-paste.
I dislike one-shot LLM prose as much as the next person, but there's no chance this use case ever goes away. Writing is difficult and takes a long time. Using an LLM to write for you gets your message across with the least effort. It's here to stay. Our only hope is that the models simply start writing better.
It gets a lot less difficult when you don't outsource it to a chat bot at every opportunity. Communication matters. If you do it badly because you let a bot that can't write do it all for you people should complain. The fact that lots of people will do it doesn't mean that readers should lower their standards.
I'm never going to complain about people using AI to write their private documents, but if someone publishes something, explicitly for others to read, and what they published is annoying to read and that wasn't the goal of the "writer" they should probably know about it. Even if they never check the comments, those of us who were made to read that slop can commiserate with each other.
Sure, it's here to stay. But the least effort solution is often not the best one. I would also argue it gets the point across with the least effort on the writer's part, but the most on the reader's. LLM prose is not easy to read and often not interesting because we're all used to slop. And I like a little human touch. I don't know if LLMs will ever be able to replace the individual human style differences.
The critics never point this out though. They typically just find the first AI smell then proudly announce to everyone that they didn’t finish the article. It’s the new HN meta for securing upvotes with low effort.
I do generally agree though that the author should edit or rewrite completely the AI output since he clearly put a lot of effort into the thing he made itself.
It's hard to imagine people taking the time to give a bunch of helpful notes about what the AI did poorly to a person who didn't even bother to do more than copy/paste the shitty AI output in the first place. We're not professional editors, and this isn't a forum for aspiring writers looking to improve, we're just insulted that someone published thousands of words they didn't think mattered enough to put any effort into.
> The critics never point this out though. They typically just find the first AI smell then proudly announce to everyone that they didn’t finish the article.
I mean, I'm the "critic" that started this thread and my comment doesn't say that, so what exactly is your problem? If it were poor writing for any other reason would you have the same kneejerk defensive reaction that you have about poor AI writing?
What’s my problem? Your low effort Redditor tier updoot seeking behavior.
What do I think you should do? Just ignore it and let people who are interested in what the guy made have a discussion. If you are so keen to discuss AI use in blog posts, make a separate post about it and have an on-topic discussion rather than starting a circle jerk in every other post.
Personally, comments like this are against the guidelines. Please either downvote and move on, or comment about the parts that are interesting and substantive.
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
> Find something interesting to respond to instead.
> Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
I find it so much more annoying when it's on something that should be genuinely interesting - I just can't read this even though I do actually want to.
This is a net gain all around.
Better to have some part hook at the back of the head or any bony protrusions on the sides or back of the head, perhaps in the vicinity of the ears.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_discoid_lupus_erythemat...
> When she was diagnosed with DLE, discoid lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune condition where the immune system attacks the skin on the nose and sunlight makes it worse
edit: ah, just saw a comment from the author indicating they added that post-hoc
Why are you concerned about the food safety of this though?
Like, why ?
If you click the image it goes away.
Fair points. I’m a designer, not a writer, so I used an LLM to help write it. The story and the dogs are real. After reading the comments I removed the parts that felt off and defined DLE (discoid lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune skin condition made worse by sun).
My dog Billie has it, and that’s what started all this. I made the cover for her, shared it free, and it grew from there.
I like the project but using Claude sure didn't improve this article.
Maybe instead of expecting everyone to be good at everything, we cut this guy a little slack and let him use AI to help write?
But that doesn't change that slop sucks to read.
But, did AI actually _help_ in this specific phrase? I think it's OK to point out the quirks (and even drawbacks) of AI, even if we generally support the underlying motions of the person using it.
Am I utterly mistaken or was LLM-written prose more tolerable when it was GPT-4o and Opus 3.x writing it?
It's mainstreamed. Spare the rest of us.
It gets a lot less difficult when you don't outsource it to a chat bot at every opportunity. Communication matters. If you do it badly because you let a bot that can't write do it all for you people should complain. The fact that lots of people will do it doesn't mean that readers should lower their standards.
I'm never going to complain about people using AI to write their private documents, but if someone publishes something, explicitly for others to read, and what they published is annoying to read and that wasn't the goal of the "writer" they should probably know about it. Even if they never check the comments, those of us who were made to read that slop can commiserate with each other.
I do generally agree though that the author should edit or rewrite completely the AI output since he clearly put a lot of effort into the thing he made itself.
I mean, I'm the "critic" that started this thread and my comment doesn't say that, so what exactly is your problem? If it were poor writing for any other reason would you have the same kneejerk defensive reaction that you have about poor AI writing?
What do I think you should do? Just ignore it and let people who are interested in what the guy made have a discussion. If you are so keen to discuss AI use in blog posts, make a separate post about it and have an on-topic discussion rather than starting a circle jerk in every other post.
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
> Find something interesting to respond to instead.
> Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting.
> Omit internet tropes.