Don't be a meat proxy(gruhn.me)
663 points by ngruhn 4 hours ago | 291 comments
tl;dr: Relaying verbatim AI output in Slack, PRs, or chats wastes others' time—they can prompt the LLM themselves with better context, and AI text is verbose, jargon-heavy, and often subtly wrong. Instead, read and validate the output, then respond in your own words. Otherwise, in scenarios like code review, the reviewer ends up doing the actual implementation via their own LLM, with you serving only as a "meat proxy."
HN Discussion:
  • Frustration with colleagues relaying unvetted LLM output, echoing the article's complaint
  • This behavior isn't new; pre-LLM people did the same with Google/StackOverflow results
  • Setting explicit boundaries or etiquette (calling it out, banning it, editing before sharing) solves the problem
  • Questioning the article's example, suggesting the jargon-heavy output is actually reasonable or fixable via prompting
  • Broader worry about technology fostering laziness and human de-evolution