Honestly
LLMs say "honestly" most where they're most likely to confabulate. Here's the mechanism — and why it backfires exactly like a sociopath's professions.
Signal & Noise
Observations and commentary on technology culture
66 posts
I Know It When I See It
Autonomous agents don't develop taste. They execute the taste someone was disciplined enough to write down. A worked example from a real pipeline.
Why AI Gives You a Different Answer When You're Angry
Losing your temper at a model does not produce a worse version of the same answer. It produces a different kind of answer — one built to end the argument rather than solve the problem.
The Bewilderment Test
Karpathy built the foundations of modern AI and says he can't keep up with it. That's the most credible signal the field has produced.
Why Your AI Can't Add (And the Tool That Fixes It)
If you would reach for a calculator, tell the model to reach for one too. It cannot add reliably and it can write a formula that adds perfectly — and you get to keep the formula.
Why You Should Always Ask for the File
Stop accepting reports. Ask for the artifact — the actual numbers, the actual error, the actual file — and the confident-sounding failure disappears.
Hasta la Vista, Baby
Arnold's most famous line is a Spanish phrase in an English-language film spoken in a thick Austrian accent. What it tells us about how language acquisition actually works — and how you can learn from his mistake.
Resistance Is Futile. Your Limbic System Is Not.
AI is intelligence without a limbic system. It will operate your tools, not replace your judgment — and most professionals are bracing for the wrong loss.
I Banned Words From My AI. It's Smarter Now
Hand the model a list of phrases it must not use. It turns a vague complaint into a rule the machine can follow — and mine is at the bottom of this piece, all hundred and fifty lines of it, free to copy.
Persons, Selectively
A German court ruled Google liable for AI-generated defamation. The slippery slopes are real. So is the principle behind the ruling.