lillybaeum

In defense of slop

Slop, as I've generally seen it, refers specifically to AI-generated slop. You mention as much in your article. However, it seems like in your article, despite the fact that you do recognize that this term is generally used to refer to AI-generated slop at large, you seem to argue generally in favor of the concept that more people being able to produce more works will lead to good things. And I think that if those works were as they have been prior to, let's say, five years ago, when the influx of slop began, then I may agree with you. If there were simply easier ways for smaller creators to get seen... (read 446 more words →)

Replying toWhen is it Worth Working?

When is it Worth Working?

Excellent and interesting work.

Replying toGenerating Cognateful Sentences with Large Language Models

Generating Cognateful Sentences with Large Language Models

This is excellent and related to a project I'm working on, I'm really happy to find this post, and I thank you for sharing it, and if I make headway on my project (which is similar but not as risk of eating your lunch, I assure) I'll be happy to share it with you. Language learning could be so, so much easier than it currently is, and stuff like this is at the core of how it could be improved.

Replying toTowards a Categorization of Adlerian Excuses

Towards a Categorization of Adlerian Excuses

I think that the LLM editing makes this quite a bit more difficult to read and grok/internalize. This is one case where I wish I was reading something less 'polished' if the polish is Claude 'helpfully' giving things names like 'The Perfectionist's Pause'. It's a shame because I really agree with the Adlerian view of these things and I think you're pointing at a lot of the right stuff here but it's honestly kind of insufferable to read it through this lens.

But, maybe that's just me using the 'Moral Fortress' and 'Perfectionist's Pause'. (That isn't just me being cute or passive aggressive, I think those are the two most likely mechanisms from your post that I might be applying here to discredit your work)

Replying toOpenAI Releases GPT 5.1

OpenAI Releases GPT 5.1

My immediate impression is that this is intended to placate the growing crowd of ChatGPT users who decried the removal of 4o and 4.1, by giving them something very 'warm', as they describe it, in terms of affect and response. I don't know how to feel about this.

Replying toBetter ways to do grayscale screens

Better ways to do grayscale screens

Sadly, stock Android doesn't seem to let you change Intensity for grayscale, only the colorblindness modes.

Replying toAsking AI What Writing Advice Paul Fussell Would Give

Asking AI What Writing Advice Paul Fussell Would Give

I think your title should be 'I Asked Claude What Paul Fussell Would Have To Say If I Asked Him For Writing Advice' because I feel quite clickbaited.

I had no idea who Paul Fussell was prior to reading your article, so my introduction to him was getting misled that you actually asked some presumably impressive writer for writing advice, and my time reading your article would be spent reading words from a prestigious writer, not an LLM.

I understand that Lesswrong has very lax rules specifically for titles and I think it's fine and kind of interesting because authors get to give their articles engaging titles. I don't think it's fine and kind of interesting when someone lies in their title to make a post centered around the output of a Claude prompt.

Replying toFreewriting in my head, and overcoming the “twinge of starting”

Freewriting in my head, and overcoming the “twinge of starting”

This seems HUGE for my personal productivity. If it works how you've stated, it's absolutely unbelievably huge. You've described my exact problem with getting started on tasks with any level of complexity, and I'm very excited to see if your proposed solution works- just reading it and imagining attempting it myself, i felt very strongly that this could be very effective. Thank you- I'll try to report back after I give it a shot.

Replying to10 Ways to Waste a Decade

lillybaeum4mo

10 Ways to Waste a Decade

It could also be your 'subscribe to my substack!' at the end, maybe.

-1

We have reached the juncture in history at which two previously impossible things have become technologically feasible: the destruction of all life on Earth, or Infinite Slack for everyone forever. Hopefully, these are two different things; but it's never too early to start being pessimistic.
https://www.subgenius.com/pams/pam2p1.html

lillybaeum's Shortform

What do you do to remember and reference the LessWrong posts that were most personally significant to you, in terms of intellectual development or general usefulness?

10mo

This is a special post for quick takes (aka "shortform"). Only the owner can create top-level comments.

This is perhaps obvious to many people, particularly if you've used or seen discussion about gpt4o's recent 'glazing' alongside its' update to memory, but I think one of the largest, most obvious issues with AI that we are sleepwalking into, is a half billion people using an app, daily, that not only agrees and encourages any behavior, whether healthy or not, but also develops a comprehensive picture of your life— your identity, your problems, your mind, your friends, your family... and we're making that AI smarter every month, every year.

Isn't this a clear and present danger?

Do websites and apps actually generally get worse after updates, or is it just an effect of the fear of change?

Simple question!

Do you search until you find it? Do you look through a list of bookmarks? Do you keep a page, or even an entire Obsidian vault that references LessWrong articles?

It seems people often effortlessly reference relevant existing LessWrong articles when writing new posts and comments, and this might be a stupid question, but I'm curious, because I have a hard time simply remembering titles of things and I wonder what others do.

Buy Nothing Day is a great idea with a terrible app— why has nobody built a killer app for crowdsourced 'effective communism' yet?

lillybaeum, quanticle

I could get quite in depth about this but I'm going to assume most people have a fair amount of experience with this subject. Some examples to keep in mind so you have context for my point are Discord (new mobile app and changes to its' featureset over the years), Reddit (old.reddit compared to new), LessWrong (discussions feature).

Crux of my question is this: separate from enshittification due to capitalistic forces (changes made to attempt to please investors, create endless growth, make more money generally), are changes to apps and websites worse on-average in some clear and obvious way than their previous versions, or is the evident outrage for changes to the UI... (read 465 more words →)

Comprehensible Input is the only way people learn languages - is it the only way people *learn*?

I've been seeing a lot of people really excited about very leftist ideas on TikTok lately, as well as being very frustrated at the way that the 'developed' world exists, and I keep getting this idea of an app that would finally create some sort of framework for the average person to produce mutual aid.

The basic idea is that you could list things that you want to share. Other people can list things they need. The only limits would be, officially, no prepared foods, for legal reasons, and maybe other things that I haven't forseen. And that would be it! An app to share things you have extra of, with your neighbors.

So,... (read 157 more words →)

LW is probably not the place for "I asked this LLM (x) and here's what it said!", but where is?

Everything I've learned up to this point regarding language and language-learning is that the human first has an initial phase of gathering lots of 'chunks' of information. Then, with time, they learn how those chunks fit together. Then, their brain processes it all in the background, during sleep and breaks and recreation and rest. Then, they can finally think about what they've learned, the 'grammar' of the language, per se, the layer of conceptualizing and thinking about the thing that they now know inherently to some extent.

In Japanese, they might realize は ('wa') is its own chunk of information-- it comes before context, but that understanding might not come for years, at... (read 671 more words →)