There’s one group of people to whom your advice probably doesn’t apply, I mean, the vast majority of people: most of us who write scientific papers are non-native, often even Bad English speakers (me included). Many non-native speakers use LLMs extensively, for good reasons. In fact, this is a staggering change for the better in their lives! Imagine: much faster writing, almost as if you wrote in your mother tongue; no need for “native speaker editing” anymore: you don’t have to beg your native speaker colleague to do it for free because you don’t have funding for experts. You personally may prefer reading broken English, but there are problems with that: A) journals won’t accept it, and B) broken English makes the author sound a bit mentally challenged. LLM-generated Perfect Officialese English makes one sound like a passably intelligent though humourless person, which is, unfortunately, better.
Almost all PhD position application letters from non-native speakers are written in LLM Officialese nowadays. Since it’s so common—basically everybody—we don’t judge them by that aspect, it doesn’t convey any information. Of course, if a letter comes well-written in a human style, it stands out favourably.
Yes, I agree. There is a growing premium on being a native english writer these days to prompt/correct the LLM to sound human. The rest of us stumble in the dark when we use an LLM do get our texts in order.
There’s one group of people to whom your advice probably doesn’t apply, I mean, the vast majority of people: most of us who write scientific papers are non-native, often even Bad English speakers (me included). Many non-native speakers use LLMs extensively, for good reasons. In fact, this is a staggering change for the better in their lives! Imagine: much faster writing, almost as if you wrote in your mother tongue; no need for “native speaker editing” anymore: you don’t have to beg your native speaker colleague to do it for free because you don’t have funding for experts. You personally may prefer reading broken English, but there are problems with that: A) journals won’t accept it, and B) broken English makes the author sound a bit mentally challenged. LLM-generated Perfect Officialese English makes one sound like a passably intelligent though humourless person, which is, unfortunately, better.
Almost all PhD position application letters from non-native speakers are written in LLM Officialese nowadays. Since it’s so common—basically everybody—we don’t judge them by that aspect, it doesn’t convey any information. Of course, if a letter comes well-written in a human style, it stands out favourably.
Yes, I agree. There is a growing premium on being a native english writer these days to prompt/correct the LLM to sound human. The rest of us stumble in the dark when we use an LLM do get our texts in order.