Fine-tuning an LLM to write docs like it's 1995 (opens in new tab)

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.