By Chains or by Promises

Jacob Falkovich · 2 Jun 2026 · putanumonit.com ↗

3 korrents from this piece

Jacob Falkovich did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Most people who would be a good audience for an essay will never notice it or bother to engage with it.

Their words99% of people who you'd want to read your essay probably don't know you exist, or don't give a fuck, or wouldn't be bothered to engage even if they read it.
Our reading
Large language models write to satisfy an evaluator's grading criteria rather than to move a human reader.

Their wordsLLMs write to get a grade, not with the goal of moving the reader.
Our reading
Because they never get bored, confused or distracted, large language models are an ideal captive reader rather than a free one.

Their wordsLLMs themselves are the perfect captive reader: they never get bored or confused, never miss a reference or have an emotional reaction, never ask themselves why am I reading this?, never close the tab.