I’ve been experimenting with having LLMs write/update academic notebooks for me, and so far the best results I’ve gotten came from correcting their output and asking them what they’ve “learned” from my feedback.

The web version of ChatGPT is confusing too. Now it has separate “Chat” and “Work” tabs (what about a Codex tab?), and it shifts the burden on the user to know when to use one or the other. Note that using the “Work” tab means using Codex usage limits [^1], but that’s hidden away in the settings.

Also, apparently “GPT-5.6 Terra and GPT-5.6 Luna are not selectable in standard ChatGPT conversations” [^2] — so if you want to use these models, you must go to the Work tab or download the app.

I don’t understand why there is so much fragmentation in what was supposed to be a unified app. The way that it is now, it’s far from intuitive.

[^1]: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001275-chatgpt-work-an...

[^2]: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001354-gpt-56-in-chatg...

GPT 5.5 has a tendency to write English calques and non-idiomatic prose in other languages. Although that can be somewhat tamed with detailed instructions and a corpus of confusing terms, the model’s output often reads like a literal translation rather than native prose. Since I notice these issues most clearly in languages I know well, it makes me reluctant to trust the model’s output in languages in which I’m less proficient.

Ironically, ChatGPT began as a simple text-generation tool, but much of its offerings and benchmarks now focus on coding and agentic workflows, while leaving behind what made it notable in the first place.

Worse still: what happens when your workflow involves both coding and general knowledge work? Are you expected to switch apps, or switch settings? To me, it sounds very confusing and inefficient, and not at all what I was expecting.

I think we are still on the early days of LLMs. Right now, using them productively requires deliberate thought and an acute knowledge of their limitations. As the author says, it’s easy to get angry at a model, or to foolishly let it nudge you towards more code and more tests — even when that is suboptimal.

To a certain extent, models keep getting better and better at discerning our intentions and providing value. Yet I am not sure whether we will reach a point where using them successfully no longer causes the kind of fatigue that it does today.

As a non-native English speaker, I found that result pretty good! Though being a native Portuguese speaker certainly helped me as many difficult words in English borrow from Latin, and in Portuguese the Latin influence is more pronounced.

AI is great if you simultaneously guide it and let it guide you. I take my time building a very detailed spec for what I want, then run it through the AI looking for contradictions, misconceptions, edge cases, performance bottlenecks, potential optimizations… anything that might cause problems in the future. Usually these discussions lead to multiple spec-improvement journeys, and that’s where the bulk of learning in a project comes from. Sometimes the AI will flag actual issues, while other times I might need to rein in its proposals — mostly in terms of feature creep and finding non-existing problems. I believe this back-and-forth is the most significant aspect of making the best out of yak shaving.

By the time the spec is “final”, it can be quickly implemented by an AI as I watch, review and test, with practically zero code banging on my part. This way, I get to understand precisely how the project works, make it tailored to my needs, and still not waste time, muscles or even mental bandwidth with menial coding.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48550258

Points: 2

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In an ideal world, Brazil would have a thriving private sector, capable of competing even in the AI sector. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, and I believe that without government action such endeavors won’t really succeed.

From where I stand, it’s not fair to charge the hell out of people who fall for these tricks while giving steep discounts to the ones who don’t. Maybe there’s a “fool me once” aspect to Ryanair’s shenanigans, so at least their impact might be limited somehow.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48480924

Points: 3

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