The phrase "unreasonable effectiveness" is used here in the context of AI. Where "we put a whole bunch of markup characters in the context" not messing up the output significantly could be considered unexpected. The actual performance impact is unknowable, given the difficulty of measuring LLM performance. And whomever pays for your tokens won't be pleased either.

While it has been used in the context of HTML before, it's a bit of a "meme" as several papers used that phrase. Much like the "X is all you need" snowclone.

The HTML version dates from 2021 (https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/01/the-unreasonable-effectiven...) when client side rendering and web apps were still their peak.

I always worry about posting comments like this. A lot of tech bros are like "form logical arguments about why this clickbait isn't clickbait otherwise you are a troll". You beat me too it. Thanks for your service.

I also love how maybe 10% of the posts on here are like "some thing that has existed for 40+ years ,/:/; Claude/chatgpt". So much advertising at the expense of a dead internet it's ridiculous.