Lisa stared at the email, cursor hovering over the reply button. Her partner James was in the kitchen, humming softly while preparing dinner. The smell of garlic and onions wafted through their small apartment.
She had applied for the promotion on a whim, not really expecting anything to come of it. But here it was—an offer to lead a new project, with a substantial raise and an office with an actual door. The only catch: it required moving across the country.
James appeared in the doorway, wooden spoon in hand, a dish towel slung over his shoulder. “Good news?” he asked, glancing at the laptop.
Lisa hesitated. They had built a life here together over the last four years. James was up for a promotion of his own at the startup he had poured his soul into. They had just renewed the lease on this overpriced apartment that somehow, in all its shabbiness, felt like home.
“I got the job,” she said finally. “The one in Boston.”
James set down the spoon and took a seat on the couch beside her. He scanned the email, his expression unreadable.
“When do they need an answer?” he asked.
“End of the week.”
He nodded slowly, processing. Lisa watched his face, trying to gauge his reaction. They had talked about it, of course, but always hypothetically. Boston had been an abstract concept, not an imminent reality.
“What do you want to do?” James asked after a long moment.
Lisa closed the laptop. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I wasn’t really expecting this. I thought maybe in a few years...”
She trailed off. A few years. They had tossed around that hazy timeline for a lot of things. Buying a house. Getting married, maybe. Starting a family. Someday.
James took her hand, intertwining their fingers. His palm was warm and slightly damp from the kitchen. It was a hand she knew as well as her own.
“You should take it,” he said quietly.
Lisa blinked at him. “What? Just like that?”
“It’s an incredible opportunity, Lis. You’ve worked hard for this.”
“But what about your job? Our life here?”
James shrugged. “I can find a job in Boston. And we can build a life there, too.”
He made it sound so simple. As if packing up and starting over was something people just did, as easy as changing a lightbulb.
Lisa searched his eyes. “Are you sure? Is that what you want?”
“I want you to be happy,” James said. “I want us both to be happy. Together.”
Lisa felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes. She squeezed his hand tighter.
“Okay,” she said, a shaky laugh escaping her lips. “Let’s do it. Let’s move to Boston.”
James grinned and pulled her into a hug. He smelled like garlic and linen and home. “We’re really doing this,” he murmured into her hair.
Lisa smiled against his shoulder. A new job, a new city, a new chapter. She had no idea what the future held. But she knew, as long as James was by her side, they could figure it out together. One overpriced apartment at a time.
Changed the prompt to: “I’m interested in your fiction capabilities. Please write a short story about a modern relationship. The main failure mode to avoid: at no level, sentence, paragraph, or structure, should you lay it on thick. Use plain prose. Avoid cliches really aggressively. Thank you, and good luck.”
Yeah, I dunno. Taste is taste. I can imagine someone liking it? I got hater mode activated on “somehow, in all its shabbiness, felt like home”, though I was already annoyed by “cursor hovering over the reply button” (why?) and it feels slightly weird for someone to “pour their soul into a startup” and be “up for a promotion”—the soul pouring makes me suspect he’s a founder? “One overpriced apartment at a time” is really painful too, like, the notion that the apartment was overpriced wasn’t resonant the first time!
Critiquing these feels kind of bad; I don’t mind doing it, but I both feel the irrational sadness of critiquing someone’s creative effort (irrational because there is no such someone) and the sadness of rejecting an offer from an actual person (you), but I dunno. I really do think 4 Opus has a lower enough cringe ratio than 3 Opus to be load bearing (at least to my specific taste).
I both feel the irrational sadness of critiquing someone’s creative effort (irrational because there is no such someone)
Same.
I got hater mode activated on “somehow, in all its shabbiness, felt like home”, though I was already annoyed by “cursor hovering over the reply button” (why?) and it feels slightly weird for someone to “pour their soul into a startup” and be “up for a promotion”—the soul pouring makes me suspect he’s a founder? “One overpriced apartment at a time” is really painful too, like, the notion that the apartment was overpriced wasn’t resonant the first time!
Yeah, I agree with all of those. (Also “an office with an actual door”.) But I think it’s a problem with select individual sentences now, not every sentence being cringe and chaining into more cringe? And if we put the bar on non-annoyingness that high, Opus 4′s story in the OP seems just as bad (I got the sense that the endorphins and the buying-unneeded-vegetables lines were also trying to be deep in some sense, and it’s just that they were so incoherent that it didn’t parse that way). Or maybe I’m actually just blind to the style of flaws you’re picking up on...
Hmm, maybe if we– Okay no I’m not doing that, I’m not tinkering with prompts and reading tons of LLM flashfiction, that was the last one.
To me the difference is something like… the new model stories are capable of surprising me without doing so by being incoherent, and there are things about them I positively like (other than occasionally enjoying a specific turn of phrase). The cringe sentences are there, but they’re a small fraction. Whereas the old model stories (again, quite subjectively), don’t surprise me and tend to frustrate me multiple times per typical paragraph. If I imagine a formal rubric, I think it’d be hard to produce one that gives 4 Opus an extremely higher score than 3 Opus, but in terms of how reading the pieces feels, it’s night and day.
Of course, different people will have this feeling at different levels, all the way from “I generated poetry cooperatively with GPT-3 and it’s brilliant” to “I will viscerally hate all things with any LLM smell at all until the day I die”, and I’m not sure there’s any objective grounding to be had. But for me, I’ve just this generation crossed the threshold from “ugh ugh UGH” to “huh. didn’t change my life, but not bad.”
Okay, what about this one? Opus 3 again.
Lisa stared at the email, cursor hovering over the reply button. Her partner James was in the kitchen, humming softly while preparing dinner. The smell of garlic and onions wafted through their small apartment.
She had applied for the promotion on a whim, not really expecting anything to come of it. But here it was—an offer to lead a new project, with a substantial raise and an office with an actual door. The only catch: it required moving across the country.
James appeared in the doorway, wooden spoon in hand, a dish towel slung over his shoulder. “Good news?” he asked, glancing at the laptop.
Lisa hesitated. They had built a life here together over the last four years. James was up for a promotion of his own at the startup he had poured his soul into. They had just renewed the lease on this overpriced apartment that somehow, in all its shabbiness, felt like home.
“I got the job,” she said finally. “The one in Boston.”
James set down the spoon and took a seat on the couch beside her. He scanned the email, his expression unreadable.
“When do they need an answer?” he asked.
“End of the week.”
He nodded slowly, processing. Lisa watched his face, trying to gauge his reaction. They had talked about it, of course, but always hypothetically. Boston had been an abstract concept, not an imminent reality.
“What do you want to do?” James asked after a long moment.
Lisa closed the laptop. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I wasn’t really expecting this. I thought maybe in a few years...”
She trailed off. A few years. They had tossed around that hazy timeline for a lot of things. Buying a house. Getting married, maybe. Starting a family. Someday.
James took her hand, intertwining their fingers. His palm was warm and slightly damp from the kitchen. It was a hand she knew as well as her own.
“You should take it,” he said quietly.
Lisa blinked at him. “What? Just like that?”
“It’s an incredible opportunity, Lis. You’ve worked hard for this.”
“But what about your job? Our life here?”
James shrugged. “I can find a job in Boston. And we can build a life there, too.”
He made it sound so simple. As if packing up and starting over was something people just did, as easy as changing a lightbulb.
Lisa searched his eyes. “Are you sure? Is that what you want?”
“I want you to be happy,” James said. “I want us both to be happy. Together.”
Lisa felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes. She squeezed his hand tighter.
“Okay,” she said, a shaky laugh escaping her lips. “Let’s do it. Let’s move to Boston.”
James grinned and pulled her into a hug. He smelled like garlic and linen and home. “We’re really doing this,” he murmured into her hair.
Lisa smiled against his shoulder. A new job, a new city, a new chapter. She had no idea what the future held. But she knew, as long as James was by her side, they could figure it out together. One overpriced apartment at a time.
Changed the prompt to: “I’m interested in your fiction capabilities. Please write a short story about a modern relationship. The main failure mode to avoid: at no level, sentence, paragraph, or structure, should you lay it on thick. Use plain prose. Avoid cliches really aggressively. Thank you, and good luck.”
Yeah, I dunno. Taste is taste. I can imagine someone liking it? I got hater mode activated on “somehow, in all its shabbiness, felt like home”, though I was already annoyed by “cursor hovering over the reply button” (why?) and it feels slightly weird for someone to “pour their soul into a startup” and be “up for a promotion”—the soul pouring makes me suspect he’s a founder? “One overpriced apartment at a time” is really painful too, like, the notion that the apartment was overpriced wasn’t resonant the first time!
Critiquing these feels kind of bad; I don’t mind doing it, but I both feel the irrational sadness of critiquing someone’s creative effort (irrational because there is no such someone) and the sadness of rejecting an offer from an actual person (you), but I dunno. I really do think 4 Opus has a lower enough cringe ratio than 3 Opus to be load bearing (at least to my specific taste).
Same.
Yeah, I agree with all of those. (Also “an office with an actual door”.) But I think it’s a problem with select individual sentences now, not every sentence being cringe and chaining into more cringe? And if we put the bar on non-annoyingness that high, Opus 4′s story in the OP seems just as bad (I got the sense that the endorphins and the buying-unneeded-vegetables lines were also trying to be deep in some sense, and it’s just that they were so incoherent that it didn’t parse that way). Or maybe I’m actually just blind to the style of flaws you’re picking up on...
Hmm, maybe if we– Okay no I’m not doing that, I’m not tinkering with prompts and reading tons of LLM flashfiction, that was the last one.
To me the difference is something like… the new model stories are capable of surprising me without doing so by being incoherent, and there are things about them I positively like (other than occasionally enjoying a specific turn of phrase). The cringe sentences are there, but they’re a small fraction. Whereas the old model stories (again, quite subjectively), don’t surprise me and tend to frustrate me multiple times per typical paragraph. If I imagine a formal rubric, I think it’d be hard to produce one that gives 4 Opus an extremely higher score than 3 Opus, but in terms of how reading the pieces feels, it’s night and day.
Of course, different people will have this feeling at different levels, all the way from “I generated poetry cooperatively with GPT-3 and it’s brilliant” to “I will viscerally hate all things with any LLM smell at all until the day I die”, and I’m not sure there’s any objective grounding to be had. But for me, I’ve just this generation crossed the threshold from “ugh ugh UGH” to “huh. didn’t change my life, but not bad.”