Get the latest tech news

Fine-tuning an LLM to write docs like it's 1995


In my predictions for 2030 I wrote that tech writers would be using specialized LLMs, running locally on powerful hardware. I see hints of this move to “local first” among engineering pundits, but we’re not there yet, in part because of how much more powerful connected frontier models are. That doesn’t mean we can’t experiment, though. That’s precisely what I did last week, trying to fine-tune an instruct model to write like a software technical writer from the 80s and 90s.

None

Get the Android app

Or read this on Hacker News

Read more on:

Photo of Docs

Docs

Photo of LLM

LLM

Photo of fine

fine

Related news:

News photo

The LLM warnings Google fired Timnit Gebru over have all come true

News photo

GPT-5.5 dominates $1,500 LLM hacking test while Gemini refuses to even try

News photo

Show HN: Mnemo – local-first AI memory layer for any LLM (Rust, SQLite,petgraph)