This might work only if you have “infinite” compute and infinite tokens.
As someone that used the $20 plan, this pure agentic approach is impossible to do because I’d hit the limit fast and I would end up with less outcome.
What I found that work incredibly well was to provide a human written code as reference, and ask it to extend it. So I scaffold the entire thing, architect it, write few samples code (controllers, services, models, components, database schema, how auth works, etc) so the LLM can have a headstart on their attention (pun intended)
I usually wrote a stub with a lot of details on how to implement it. Something like a higher abstraction pseudo code. Then ask the LLM to implement it.
When it fails, it is often better to undo the whole changes, adjust the stub so it catches what fails before, and try again.
Or, commit the changes, and use a new fresh context and only address what went wrong.
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Whenever I tried this agentic from scratch approach, I always end up disappointed; both on the outcome and on the limit that I hit before an hour even passed.
I did the same too. I listen exclusively to my own songs made with the help of AI.
My styles are orchestra and symphony pop, which I find rare these days. Even if it exists, the lyrics might not be something that I enjoy.
So I just write my own lyrics, decides on the melodies, and put it to AI to create a polished version.
Do I feel emotional when I listen to it? Of course, its my own lyrics that I wrote. Of course I sing along with it because its the melodies I chose.
And its even more emotional because I relate to it.
Someone can create some songs with billion listeners and emotional for others, but if it doesn’t relate to me. What am I supposed to feel?
My listener wont be able to relate with me personally because they don’t know me. But they might be able to resonates with my songs because it triggers specific memories or emotions for them. And for me that’s enough. Let the songs be the one that they resonates with.
That's actually a bit creepy to me. How do you deal with a lack of novelty factor here though? Because ultimately, if you yourself generate all music you listen to, how could anything be surprising? I often listen to songs that surprise me in one way or another.
When I said exclusively, its not that I am not exposed to other songs as well. I do follow certain artists that I really enjoy listening to because I find their lyrics and melodies resonates with me, even when its not in the genre that I preferred.
It's just I don't go and explore songs actively. If my playlist suddenly randomize itself (which YouTube Music usually do even when I already selected a specific playlist), I usually just keep it randomizing the songs, I either skip the songs based on the intro or just the title.
Sometimes, I only write the lyrics without any melodies, or just give a base chords for the AI to work with without any melodies, and AI might surprise me on how it suddenly chose a certain melodies or chord progression.
So you can say I'm exploring, but only within the boundaries of the lyrics that I wrote. Or when YouTube Music randomly plays a song for me and I immediately resonates with it.
If you write your own songs, you'll realise that they are infinitely surprising to you, much like one's own children. Just endlessly fascinating. I sing my own songs all the time, probably more than other people's.
Of course, that doesn't mean I don't want to listen to new music by other people, or create more of my own. I'm simply sharing what it is to experience songs written by yourself. I saw Sting the other day talking about the very same thing to Rick Beato regarding songs he wrote 40 years ago, and I remember Brett Anderson of Suede saying that he loved listening to his own music. In fact, wouldn't it be weird if you didn't want to?
That's the feelings right? What's wrong with enjoying your creation right?
The song that I wrote has more values because it carries memories, emotions, and my internal state. I'm not saying other songs doesn't have values. It's just harder to resonate with, unless the melodies or lyrics align with my emotional state.
I listen to my own songs because I am songwriter, and still am even when I stopped doing it professionally. I am not doing it for the sake of "I just want to listen to my own songs and I will never listen to others". I listen just because "This song is meaningful for me"
And the "this song" in that quote above, can be mine, or other's.
Childish Gambino (Donald Glover) said something similar when asked if he listens to his own music. Paraphrased: There's this weird stigma about listening to your own music like it's egotistical. When you make yourself a sandwich, do you feel egotistical when you enjoy eating it?
That's like saying that in order to not be stressed you can only read books that you write yourself. Are we seriously going to act like any of this is normal or healthy?
The technology aspect of it is not the problem. You can use the underlying technology of it in any number of ways, some of which could even be artistic.
We are talking about people who rather generate some random Suno songs instead of just searching for some playlists of which there are thousands upon thousands. There is something deeply dystopian about that.
Extrapolate this idea for a second: 10, 20 years from now, people generating their TV shows, their porn (including the illegal kinds), their music of dead musicians. That's individualism at its most extreme. Culture is a shared experience, you can talk to other people about the same music, same fiction, same art, because it's out there and exists in the world. When on the other hand people normalize consuming their own custom AI-generated culture, that shared experience is completely lost. At best you'll get a friend or two to watch your sitcom episode, it's not going to be a water cooler conversation at work.
I understand your points and I think there is a chance of this going wrong. Especially with the current incentive structure behind it. I personally hate smartphones because the incentive there is to get people's attention and sell it.
But without this incentives I could imagine a future where Smartphones where actually good and have a more positive impact.
But back to culture. I don't see the problem of people listening to their own created music. Even now a lot of people make e.g great photos just for them selves. As long as we don't force people to do so that's fine in my books.
Still if the incentives are bad, this can go very go wrong in very distopian ways.
This is extremely hyperbolic. The guy says he has a specific taste that chills him out. Why are you guys so judgmental?
I love me some Deleuze and Hegel, but my life is full of "interesting" bits already. Sometimes you need something simple. Your example is wrong as well: he did not create his own music, he directed it and yes I would definitely love to read a book about some weird sci-fi ideas I have written in some style I love but myself cannot reproduce.
Im a hobbyist songwriter (melodies and lyricist) of decades feeding my trove of MP3s/songs to Suno. Listening to Suno produced version of my songs is way more satisfying then listening to other peoples music. My Suno slop of many decades has the most meaning as they all reflect a time, experience, a feeling in and about life to current world events, etc, etc. Before Suno I was singing my songs heard in my demos (play piano & guitar) and Im a terrible singer now they all sound pro and again are way more meaningful then anyone elses songs.
I might misunderstood you or you might misunderstood me.
I was moved by a lot of songs made by artists I never met. But I was moved because of the song, not because of the reason why the artist wrote it. If I can truly understand the emotional state of the artist when they wrote it, I might be able to empathize with them. But that's me empathizing with the person that made the art as a human. Nothing stopping me from doing that as a human, even when their song didn't move me.
I publish my songs under a pseudonyms. They can infer what am I as a person based on the songs that I wrote. They can infer what emotions and feelings that I am experiencing while I write the songs. But it's all inference, unless they know me behind the pseudonyms, they won't be able to relate with me personally, as my real self, not as the songwriter. And I am okay with that.
Well, I was being overly cynical for no reason. Do what makes you happy man, if that's AI songs who am I to judge. You clearly care a lot about it and it brings you something.
What's so weird about creating your own stuff? If I paint something stupid (like by numbers) and hang it in my room you're going to judge me?
This is not fine art, but it is creative. Lots and lots of creative pursuits are just tweaking shit others have provided as building blocks. I don't see how AI is different in this case.
Yes, playing Guitar Hero is super creative as well, almost like the real thing. Look, do whatever. But trust me, buying a cheap acoustic guitar and learning to play House of the Rising Sun, or buying cheap paints and canvas to for sunday landscapes would be million times satisfying, no matter what the quality of it is. This other stuff is just fear of creativity, failure and yourself.
You probably won’t listen, but trust me. You are missing out. Take a life drawing class. Learn to play an instrument. Live.
My point was narrower. When I write the lyrics, choose the melody, and use AI to help turn it into a polished arrangement, the result has personal meaning to me. It reflects my memories, taste, and emotional state. That does not make it superior to other music. It just makes it personal. I can resonates with songs made by other people if it align with my current emotional state.
I just don't spent time actively exploring new songs to listen to. I spent more time writing my own expression than exploring other expressions.
Yes, I understand what you are writing about. But to be true, I am not sure if this is right thing to do. After all it seems like you are closing yourself in a bubble of your own experiences and emotions. Will you be able to talk to other people and relate to their own emotions and experiences if you will be only ever thinking about your own?
What I really like when I was young, was to talk to my friends about what we find in Diablo II. Or how I like or dislike some band.
Can you talk about your own AI generated music with your friends if this is some intimate?
But this is just my take on that, mate. You do you.
Totally understandable. There’s a way to resonate with other outside of music right. Yours was Diablo. I can’t resonate with that. But if you play Wuthering Waves we’d be a great resonators (pun intended).
Maybe the word that I use “exclusively” is too strong. It means I default to listen to my own songs. Maybe 90% of my playlist songs is my own songs. The first song that I listen in the morning is my song. But I also listen to the remaining 10% albeit not often. And that 10% helps me understand other people too ^^
I do share my music with friends, the reason why I can publish my song is because I chose the words carefully, so it might sounds pretty and romantic to others, but to me it might have different meanings.
Is it the right thing? I have no idea mate, I am, still trying to understand - too.
sure mate I was just asking you what is your take about that. I mean I am working remotely and barely see my friends, alienate myself even more because I want to listen to private music does not seem like a good idea. Concerts and music festivals are great events to meet existing and new friends.
It's definitely not accidental but I'm not completely sure whether or not it is simply a "tell" or watermark or an attempt to foster brand association.
I tried writing a short novel using Claude Opus 4.6, I gave it outline and raw draft, and the style is very similar to this writing.
I tried to steer it away from this kind of writing because it feels weird. But it always try to output something similar to this. Or maybe I am just not used to reading novel.
So I was curious, what kind of training data was Claude trained on, that its very hard to steer it out from this style.
So I opened my kindle and looking through the recommended popular novels. Just reading through its free samples.
And the similarities are striking. Now, I dont know whether the recommended novel is the training data, or its actually written by LLM. Or maybe its just how novelist writes.
I even tried writing full chapter from scratch. And asked Claude to ghost write the second chapter for me using my writing style. It still wont follow my style and keeps writing in this kind of style from the article.
Not accusing the article of using an LLM to ghost write. Even so its fine to use LLM to ghost write. Its just one anecdote from my side, on how LLM fails to follow my writing style and keeps coming back to its training data.
Don't take this as a defense of LLMs, because it absolutely isn't, but:
>Or maybe I am just not used to reading novel.
If you're not even used to reading novels, how can you judge the results of writing one? That is one hell of a confession for someone who's trying to write fiction.
The quote you referenced is about “the weird” feelings. Maybe its weird because I didn’t read too many novels. So its totally something personal to me. Not that weird for me = bad writing.
However, I do read a lot of LLM generated output. I spent weeks tinkering with LLM while I was asking it to ghostwrite my novels. So I was exposed to a lot of text that has this weird feelings. Which I eventually felt when I read this article.
Its like hearing a song that has the same chords so many times, and then you listen to another song that had the same chords, you might be able to know that they are kinda the same, even when you don’t listen to a lot of songs.
> That is one hell of a confession for someone who's trying to write fiction.
Indeed. A significant part of gaining skills in creative writing is learning to 'read as a writer'. How to examine classic texts to understand how to develop scenes, characters, narrative styles, etc.
An important part of writing is also to write as the reader, eschewing meaningless fluff and sentences that use bombastic emotional language without really communicating.
The latter is prevalent in LLM writing. Imitating "poetry" without the feelings is something that the default, "aligned" chat models with reinforcement all do in one way or another. It's hard to get even a technical essay without empty emotional language.
And I'm only speaking for myself, I like reading novels, but it's perfectly possible to have a slop-meter without doing so.
My own signal-to-noise ratio in writing is also often bad, but with today's "frontier" LLM output I feel there's a specific tendency towards this harmless, emtpy, flowery language full of false dichotomies and rhetorical devices devoid of any purpose to communicate.
A model trained and fine-tuned to generate divisive Reddit threads sure has different tendencies.
But for the friendly assistants, there's often this solipsism and pseudo-poetic aspect.
> And the similarities are striking. Now, I dont know whether the recommended novel is the training data, or its actually written by LLM. Or maybe its just how novelist writes.
For traditionally published works, it's trivial to exclude LLM-written content, just look for anything published before Nov 30, 2022.
I think we are discussing the wrong problem here. I have no solution to offer, but I think the problem is not so much generated content, but the surroundings in which it can thrive and become the content you see everywhere.
If we hadn't removed the gatekeepers everywhere (and I know there are problems with them, too), then all that technology would not be able to do much harm.
It might also have to do with incentives. The incentives in our economy are not to help and advance society, the invisible hand nonwithstanding.
Why stop with traditionally published works? Before dead-internet-day, very-nearly all forms of writing were guaranteed to be hand crafted, organic, and made with 100% Natural Intelligence.
The artificial stuff often has an odd taste, but boy it sure is quick and convenient.
You joke, but I bet every person in this forum, when presented the choice between a bot-filled forum and a guaranteed human-only* forum, they'd go with the latter.
* this is a hypothetical scenario. I don't know any guaranteed human-only digital forums.
I converse enough with LLMs for research at this point where I feel I have a good enough structure to hop on/off them to primary sources and stuff, so I don't get annoyed with them too easily.
Whereas I haven't seriously reflected on my social media consumption habits for over 15 years, and over the years I'm getting more and more annoyed at social media.
Not to be a bit misanthropic, but there's something seriously wrong with my social media usage, especially when I know there's a real human on the other side, combined with ever increasing annoyance towards commenters and just the feelings I get after reading social media.
It may be dopamine / self-help related, but no actually, I think all of that is part of the issue (discovered that in high school when it was taking off). Something about the way I'm fundamentally interacting with the medium seems so horrible and icky the more I mature.
Niche hobbyist forums are still safe, for now. There's just not enough commercial interest in petroleum lantern restoration to make it worth anyone's time to poison this particular well.
Even some larger niche hobbies like the saltwater aquarium community seemspretty safe for now (though it also helps that many forums have members who visit each other to trade corals and admire each others tanks).
On the contrary! The dead-day theorem established earlier states that an 11/22 date filter is a necessary condition for verifiable human-only content, when filtered by content-creation date.
A weaker theorem can be postulated that any such filter provides a second order sufficient condition.
This means we can filter content by account creation date, for example, by hiding all posts and comments from accounts created after the digital death event. This won’t always guarantee human-only content but certainly more than otherwise.
But then we wouldn’t be having this most definitively human-to-human conversation, right?
It's not the launch of GPT, but probably about 4 or 4o that it really became solid. I also don't think video is there just yet, at least for video over 10 seconds.
Who's "people"? The bottom X% (40%?) of the population is already falling for AI slop video scams, but before that, they were also falling for pig butchering and nigerian prince scams, so the "average" person benchmark has already been passed for text, photos, videos, etc. For more astute consumers, video isn't there yet.
There's also the question of whether people are even trying to disguise AI content, and how effective that disguise is. Are you or I missing the AI-generated text that just has a veneer of disguise on it?
why does it matter when it "became solid?" there was plenty of slop generated with ChatGPT, that really was the turning point (because of public access)
4-5 words sentences ted talk style, yes. I hated it even when humans were doing it. It's like motivational speakers trying their hand at writing novels
I agree it's hard to get it to output things in different styles... I started doing a side project for writing with LLMs (ailivrum.com -- my main focus being doing some writing/reading for my younger daughter right now, although I'm structuring for others to use it too).
So far what I found is that doing prompt engineering does not yield great results. LLMs just go with their own style regardless and I had not much luck changing it... it can do some interesting stories though, but it's far from just outline + prompt > gen story to get something that's readable (on the good side, there are many LLMs, so testing a different provider may give better results).
I used to write music in the past, and I mostly do it to tell stories or a songification of a poem. When I lived alone, it was easy because I can record anytime I wanted in full silence. Now that I am with family, I can’t record without a background noise seeping on my vocals.
I found that AI helped a lot, I can still write the story, the poem, the lyrics - and just let AI find a melody that represent the story as close as how I imagined it on my mind.
I mostly design and write the story first, then captures the story as poem or lyrics, then let AI “cover” it for me. I don’t want AI to write for me because the story and lyrics is what I cared about, and I like to put metaphors and hidden messages on it.
For example, this album that tells about the phases of life as seasons is AI generated.
As someone that used the $20 plan, this pure agentic approach is impossible to do because I’d hit the limit fast and I would end up with less outcome.
What I found that work incredibly well was to provide a human written code as reference, and ask it to extend it. So I scaffold the entire thing, architect it, write few samples code (controllers, services, models, components, database schema, how auth works, etc) so the LLM can have a headstart on their attention (pun intended)
I usually wrote a stub with a lot of details on how to implement it. Something like a higher abstraction pseudo code. Then ask the LLM to implement it.
When it fails, it is often better to undo the whole changes, adjust the stub so it catches what fails before, and try again.
Or, commit the changes, and use a new fresh context and only address what went wrong.
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Whenever I tried this agentic from scratch approach, I always end up disappointed; both on the outcome and on the limit that I hit before an hour even passed.
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