Documents are alive; chats are (mostly) dead.

· Bits and Bobs 3/17/25
  • Documents are alive[tk][tl]; chats are (mostly) dead[tm][tn].
    • In a document, you can change any part of it at any time.
    • In a chat, you can only append new things at the end, you can't change the parts in the middle.[to][tp][tq][tr][ts][tt][tu]
    • The only adaptive part in a chat[tv] is at the far edge of it as you and the LLM append tokens.
    • If the LLM went in the wrong direction in a chat, you have to wrangle it back to a path you like, which might be hard if it has momentum in a distracting direction.[tw]
    • If an LLM interprets a doc incorrectly, edit the doc and try again[tx].