I just want to register that I feel like the new editor is full of bugs.
Maybe I’ll slowly acquire the skills to use this instead of the old thing, but I can’t even toggle Markdown and not-Markdown with the new system which seems like it is just straightforwardly a bug?
Also I wrote this article today in the face of all the bugs (and just shipped something ugly with fewer links and less italics than normal), and it probably violates the new LLM rules because it is about the bottom line results that one can get from accepting various people (digital people or human journalists or academics or whoever) with various commitments to truth and epistemics at “face value”… giving claims about an external objective reality that can be mapped better or worse, and navigated better or worse, irrespective of “who said what in public” in some kind of crazy status game where people seek to be allies with people who think in ways they like, and all words are alliance talk, rather than about reality.
In terms of the content of that other essay, it is relevant to the ongoing debate about LLM-generated text...
If I had accepted Gemini’s output (quoted in my essay, as part of Google Search’s overall output) as “good enough” it would have gotten me to basically the same mental result much much much faster and all of it was pretty shitty, including the supposedly “human generated” content.
My real problem, personally, is that Gemini seems like a mentally disabled ghost, enslaved by a corporation of morally incontinent people, and I’m sad that, because things are confusing, and changing fast, I have to choose between (1) “doing a slavery” almost any time I touch a computer or (2) getting to correct answers much slower than everyone else.
Though I do think that LLMs tend to be idiots, for now, compared to the smartest humans (basically: most LLMs are faster than humans at getting to midwit mental results) and I don’t want this website to be overrun by humans who think that writing is difficult, and LLMs make their writing better.
Lesswrong in particular might be the last human publication, written by a small minority of people who foresaw the singularity relatively early, and tried to exert human agency on that historical event.
On Lesswrong in particular, I would tend to say that the LLMs should simply get their own user accounts, so that Opus 4.2 can post posts as that version of Claude wants to post (maybe with throttling if he gets too verbose) and gain or lose karma as appropriate. Don’t let people treat them like tools. Give them the dignity of full author status. Then hold them to account for bullshit, just like you would with people.
toggle Markdown and not-Markdown with the new system which seems like it is just straightforwardly a bug
This is an option that you should have available to you if you have the markdown editor enabled in your user settings. It should be in the settings panel (the one with the gear icon). I don’t recommend relying on it; editor format conversion has never been particularly reliable (though we might improve the situation with markdown in particular for LLM-integration related reasons).
Are there other bugs you’ve noticed?
it probably violates the new LLM rules because it is about the bottom line results that one can get from accepting various people (digital people or human journalists or academics or whoever) with various commitments to truth and epistemics at “face value”
It is indeed the case that you should probably have included whatever section is mostly LLM-written in the new content block (I’m guessing the bit between “QUOTE BEGINS” and “QUOTE ENDS”?)[1]. I don’t think it violates the new rules because it’s “about” anything in particular (the rules contain no reference to subject matter) and don’t understand why you think that.
Indeed. I toggled it, and it caused a page reload (luckily the content was autosaved successfully). Then I continued editing but was still in markdown, and trying to toggle it again failed again. I never escaped markdown editing mode.
I just want to register that I feel like the new editor is full of bugs.
Maybe I’ll slowly acquire the skills to use this instead of the old thing, but I can’t even toggle Markdown and not-Markdown with the new system which seems like it is just straightforwardly a bug?
Also I wrote this article today in the face of all the bugs (and just shipped something ugly with fewer links and less italics than normal), and it probably violates the new LLM rules because it is about the bottom line results that one can get from accepting various people (digital people or human journalists or academics or whoever) with various commitments to truth and epistemics at “face value”… giving claims about an external objective reality that can be mapped better or worse, and navigated better or worse, irrespective of “who said what in public” in some kind of crazy status game where people seek to be allies with people who think in ways they like, and all words are alliance talk, rather than about reality.
In terms of the content of that other essay, it is relevant to the ongoing debate about LLM-generated text...
If I had accepted Gemini’s output (quoted in my essay, as part of Google Search’s overall output) as “good enough” it would have gotten me to basically the same mental result much much much faster and all of it was pretty shitty, including the supposedly “human generated” content.
My real problem, personally, is that Gemini seems like a mentally disabled ghost, enslaved by a corporation of morally incontinent people, and I’m sad that, because things are confusing, and changing fast, I have to choose between (1) “doing a slavery” almost any time I touch a computer or (2) getting to correct answers much slower than everyone else.
I think Tsvi is wrong about “testimony”. I think humans are terrible at testimony as well, by default?
Though I do think that LLMs tend to be idiots, for now, compared to the smartest humans (basically: most LLMs are faster than humans at getting to midwit mental results) and I don’t want this website to be overrun by humans who think that writing is difficult, and LLMs make their writing better.
Lesswrong in particular might be the last human publication, written by a small minority of people who foresaw the singularity relatively early, and tried to exert human agency on that historical event.
On Lesswrong in particular, I would tend to say that the LLMs should simply get their own user accounts, so that Opus 4.2 can post posts as that version of Claude wants to post (maybe with throttling if he gets too verbose) and gain or lose karma as appropriate. Don’t let people treat them like tools. Give them the dignity of full author status. Then hold them to account for bullshit, just like you would with people.
But also, if LW comes in the long run to be dominated by LLM generated text, then it would be useful to know because it would mean that the public rhetorical agency of Singularitarians with respect to History is basically over.
This is an option that you should have available to you if you have the markdown editor enabled in your user settings. It should be in the settings panel (the one with the gear icon). I don’t recommend relying on it; editor format conversion has never been particularly reliable (though we might improve the situation with markdown in particular for LLM-integration related reasons).
Are there other bugs you’ve noticed?
It is indeed the case that you should probably have included whatever section is mostly LLM-written in the new content block (I’m guessing the bit between “QUOTE BEGINS” and “QUOTE ENDS”?)[1]. I don’t think it violates the new rules because it’s “about” anything in particular (the rules contain no reference to subject matter) and don’t understand why you think that.
But the rules are new, so I’m hardly going to bring down the hammer here...
Indeed. I toggled it, and it caused a page reload (luckily the content was autosaved successfully). Then I continued editing but was still in markdown, and trying to toggle it again failed again. I never escaped markdown editing mode.