nchmy

Nice to see them putting up a fight. Though I assume this will cause pain for everyone.

One note: aren't these sentences strange - like a series of half-thoughts? Especially the 2nd paragraph.

> Our government understood, before many, that America is altering all its trade relationships. Putting tariffs on its closest allies and charging for access to its vast market. > > We have worked in that context. To strike a fair deal that would provide the best access to the U.S. market and greater certainty to Canadian businesses and workers.

There's nothing wrong with the docs. It's the entire tiling experience, config, hotkeys etc that sounds hellish. I can't fathom why anyone would like it, but evidently many people do - great! I'm glad that there's various options available to everyone.

I just read the relevant Navigation doc and it sounds as hellish as i remember. I'm happy that folks are happy with it, but I'm sticking with traditional windows (in linux).

https://omarchy.org/manual/navigation/

i havent used a claude model in a long time, but it seems quite clear to me that the chinese models have trained on claude (at the very least) - they write just the same

I tried Omarchy 10 months ago. I liked how easy it all was, like the PWAs installed, etc...

But I was completely lost with, and even offended by, how the tiling window manager worked. Windows were just moving around all over the place, changing sizes etc... It was by far the worst computing experience that I've had in a very long time. And it was particularly awful on a small laptop screen where you REALLY need to make the most of how your windows are arranged.

After a couple days, I installed Pop!_OS and, despite its new COSMIC desktop having tiling-like features, I've been happy with its normal Windows-like UI, where I can just use windows/super key + arrow keys to move and resize windows to the side or corner of the screen, and they stay there.

Yet, so many people are raving about tiling window managers. Surely it cant be as awful of an experience as I had. What was I doing wrong? Is there some configuration that I wasn't using in order to set preferences for applications or profiles or something?

I've been working with the chinese open models for 4 months. They are more than capable for a tiny fraction of the cost of the frontier ones. And yet they also continue to get significantly better and (Deepseek's recent price increase aside) cheaper. Its hard to fathom how the truly frontier stuff will be able to compete long-term.

Indeed. Further, that neither human nor AI output is inherently good or bad. The crucial factor is whether a competent, thoughtful human has been involved in one way or another - to guide, review, steer, etc...

Moreover, that a thoughtful human can know their own tendencies and limitations, and have the AI help mitigate them.

Again, youve missed the point entirely

Indeed. And if someone then shares that output verbatim, they'll undermine their own credibility. They can guide the AI to tidy it up, or do it themselves. The issue is not in using AI for writing, but in not using it consciously.

Agreed that AI's default voice is unproductive. But you can set/give instructions.

And, yes, it would be foolish and inefficient to try to get Ai to write absolutely everything. But it can certainly be helpful in many ways.

What is needed is discernment.

Surely we can all agree that banhammer people are generally not a good standard to go by? Still, if you value participating in that space, you have no choice but to follow their rules

Not even slightly. The burden of proof is on you, given that I regularly have AI improve my writing

Thanks for sharing a perfect example of something that any AI could have helped you improve

> For me, the value of receiving comms from a human is different: it communicates not just the idea itself, but the fact that the human already understands the idea

It doesn't say the (level of) understanding of the person, but that they understand the idea. They might have misspoken, but they already replied to that comment and didn't object to my framing or further clarify.

> Yes, if that ever happens in the real world, it would be ok.

Well, this entire thread is me saying this happens in the real world, and people objecting to it

What? This entire thread and the OP and comment I originally replied to is people saying that Ai shouldn't be used for writing...

Yeah, Ive had similar negative responses a few times to things that are obviously Ai assisted, but also obvious that human thought was guiding it. Frankly, it says more to me about that person than it does about me - they seem to be the same sort who were/are staunchly anti-ai for coding, which reveals someone who has little ability for judgment, discernment etc. Just black and white.

Still, the reality is that these people exist and we're going to have to interact with them, sometimes even try to win their favour. So, the onus is on us to not trigger their irrational anti-ai hate.

I had such an experience last week, and in hindsight I probably should have written the issue differently. I used Ai there primarily to help me be more thorough and have the whole thing be better-formatted than I would have otherwise done myself (ain't no one got time for markdown tables etc).

I should have made it less thorough and more plainly formatted, because it did, admittedly, scream AI. That undermined an otherwise thoughtful and important issue. Though, the people who actually mattered didn't take exception and replied thoughtfully - perhaps partly because I had already gained some degree of trust with them, via thoughtful, useful issues and PRs.

In the end, Ai is a magical tool that can be enormously helpful with almost anything. But we have to use it consciously, like anything.

We're on the same page

No, you were claiming that no one has ever used Ai to help produce better writing. I was objecting to that, because it is an absurd statement. Ai could have told you that if you asked.

> In some other context, sure, maybe some people are thoughtfully engaging with the AI, but I have never come across this yet. I suspect you haven't either.

Um, I've literally said throughout this entire thread that I regularly get Ai to assist with my writing, to great effect. It often helps me be more concise and certainly more kind - I have a tendency to be neither in writing, especially online.

It is also helpful in formatting, say, a github issue. Though, I do need to be careful with that as it is very easy for it to just appear as an Ai slop post, even if lots of thought went into it all.

To be very clear, at no point have I ever supported/advocated for thoughtlessly copy pasting whatever Ai writes for you. This thread has been about using it judiciously, as we can/should be doing for coding or anything else.

It's sad that this has happened, but having knowledge/skill doesn't mean you have wisdom, integrity, discernment, etc... Those are an entirely different plane of understanding, and are what guard against our worst impulses and temptations. Unfortunately there isn't much focus on these things anymore (and, in fact, they're often denigrated and attacked). The result that you've observed is inevitable.

I genuinely worry even more about young people, who are being formed in this anti-thinking, anti-responsibility environment. I'm sure there's some who are strongly resisting it and seeking out genuine knowledge and connections. But surely most are happy to just vibe their way through school and life.

To be very clear, I NEVER advocated for copy pasting thoughtless LLM output anywhere. Literally quite the opposite.

I agree. But this is a separate conversation, which (unfortunately) seems to be pointless at this point.

Let's fire all editors, consultants, psychologists, sous chefs, grunts, etc!

I don't think you quite realize the implications of what you're saying.

Surely you don't actually believe, or even desire, for everyone to fully understand everything that they say... No room for questions, uncertainty, bewilderment, etc?

If someone is feigning competence via AI, that's the problem. Not Ai.

If they use Ai to polish a communication, be it statement, question, etc, and they do it in a thoughtful manner to ensure the final communication clearly and effectively communicates what it should be, there's no problem with that.

Well, In any healthy organization or relationship, there should be no problem with someone not knowing about/understanding something.

If someone is feigning competence, that's the fundamental problem, not AI

Yes, so the issue here was not AI but a lack of competence, prudence, integrity, responsibility, discernment etc.

It's the equivalent of vibe coding vs Ai assisted coding.

Vibe writing vs AI assisted writing.

> - AI responses I get are walls of written diarrhea

Evidently the people you are communicating with are not good writers/thinkers. That's the prerequisite for effectively using AI for writing help. Just as its the prerequisite for using it to produce code. If you can't code, you can't get Ai to produce good code.

So the real issue here, perhaps, is "vibe writing" rather than "Ai assisted writing".

> I'd rather get the bad/misleading/not-useful response from the person, rather that the good one they made via AI. This way I know they don't know what they're doing, are bad communicators, depend purely on the AI, and thus their position can be eliminated or replaced by someone cheaper merely relaying to/from the AI.

Agreed. But if people who don't understand the issue are feigning competence via AI then that's a fundamental problem of not just competence across many domains, but also character. As I said in another comment, the policy should be something to the effect of "you're paid for competence, integrity etc. If you don't have that, we don't need you. Take that into account when you use Ai"

> if I could wrangle Claude into communicating exactly as I would have, the practical difference is of course not observable. But that's never happened, and I've had an enterprise license at work for years.

Sorry to say, but this is a skill issue (and not necessarily with using Ai). I've used Ai MANY times to help SIGNIFICANTLY improve things that I've written - from a few sentences to many paragraphs.

As I've said in other comments, it'll rapidly and effectively remove all my worst tendencies. And, likewise, sometimes I'll have it write a first draft when I give it appropriate context/guidance that I can't be bothered to fully curate/synthesize. Then, once it gets that draft, I'll take over and tidy it up. You might say that the "can't be bothered" part is the entire issue, and I'll again say that what matters is the final result - a master chef or chief architect is not doing all the grunt work...

Oh very much agreed. It fundamentally destroys someone's reputation when they refuse to acknowledge that Ai wrote something.

Far better, and frankly perfectly acceptable, to say or have it implied or concluded, that Ai helped with the writing in some way. Still, if you're paying attention, it often shouldnt really be all that detectable because you should be aware of AI's smells and you can edit them away. Though, sometimes I'll leave it as obvious that Ai produced something I shared - eg making a well formatted github issue or whatever. But I'll also make sure to convey that a thinking human was behind it, vetted it etc

I don't disagree at all. But it still remains that AI can very much be effectively used either to write first drafts OR refine your own first drafts.

Though, I think such a writing partner can only really be useful if you know how to write yourself, which also requires knowing how to think (because writing is really just thinking).

So, again, in the end all that really matters is whether you are effectively communicating what needs to be communicated, Ai-assisted or not. It's quite apparent to other thinking people when someone is not doing that, and that hurts their reputation, undermines trust and ultimately leads to losing your job, connections etc...

So, again, the policy really should just be something to the effect of "you're being paid to help us be effective and correct. If you can't do that, we don't need you. Take that into consideration with regards to the tools that you use.". That's obviously not an adequate policy - Ai could surely be helpful in polishing it! But it most definitely couldn't get to the root of the matter on its own.