The reason Claude is bad at writing comes from the reason it’s good at coding.
Code, and the substrate it runs on, is entirely artificial, manmade. The only things that work are things humans have enabled or allowed to work. One character in the wrong place brings the whole thing tumbling down.
Life, and art as an attempt to capture it, works inversely to this. There’s an environment that’s entirely outside our control and arguably beyond our perception.
Language, colour, texture — even stories — are an attempt to collect or distill what it feels like to be alive. One character in the wrong place brings the whole thing tumbling down.
Artists relate directly to the limitations of their work. Sometimes that is the work. The words unsaid, the notes unplayed, the strokes unpainted.
LLMs process tokens through maths dressed up as language at the last moment. They don’t even know that WORDS exist, let alone truth or meaning.
They output zombies. Not alive, not even possessed but empty under the surface. And most powerful en masse.
This last bit is because they are fundamentally GENERATIVE. They exist to close the loop, give you more than expected.
Good art involves the “Zeigarnik Effect”: like an unfinished circle, they draw us in to try and reconcile the feeling provoked. They create a lingering state of cognitive tensions that (when done well) our minds can’t resist.
WE complete the art and provide resolution — through catharsis: tears, laughter, understanding.
Good writing is woven across, under and between the words. Bad writing looks similar. But feels very very different.