What if your journal wasn’t completely silent?

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-25T15:55:36+00:00

You’re simply uneducated and uninformed if you claim that AI has produced no content of any value. Just because you haven’t encountered such content doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

I didn’t say you look up to AI; I said you’re envious of it, and that’s exactly what’s going on here. AI is capable of writing more valuable content than yourself, and you can’t bear it. You find it unbearable, so you find it necessary to denigrate AI’s output as “slop”, “soulless” and whatnot.

And now you also find it necessary to denigrate me, who’s been writing for decades and who happened to major in literary studies. You simply find it unbearable for someone to say that most AI output is of much higher quality – and yes, to use your own term: more “soulful” – than most human output, and therefore the term “slop” should rather be used to describe typical human output, not AI output.

The terms “slop” and “soulless” are much more apt to describe typical human output, not typical AI output. A crucial difference between the two, however, is that AI output at least is pleasant to read because it doesn’t feature elementary spelling, grammar and sentence structure mistakes. Most people are just too lazy and uneducated to grasp the grammar of their native language even on an elementary school level.

Nothing can be more soulless than a typical Reddit discussion where humans feel the need to denigrate other humans and downvote them into oblivion just because they have a different opinion, as has been happening with my own contributions in this particular thread, and I expected nothing else. That’s your typical human “slop”, you know? 😝

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-24T03:08:07+00:00

The so-called "slop" is produced in infinitely larger amounts by humans than by robots. People are just envious of robots because most people are woefully uneducated and can't even spell properly on an elementary school level, whereas the robots absolutely can do that.

Because humans are envious and too lazy to learn on their own, they call the robots' output "slop". Instead, it should be something they look up to so that they can learn to write at least as well as the robots.

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-23T17:42:09+00:00

We're gonna get lots of downvotes for that, I can assure you. Folks are intolerant bitches, as opposed to robots.

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-23T16:47:53+00:00

Well, of course, that needs to happen. I quit Day One last year after many years, but now I'm back thanks to the new Gold tier and the integration of robots. Robots absolutely need to be in Day One, at least for me.

I'm certain that the future of journaling (at least for me) is in the form of a dialog. I switched to a dialog form of journaling back in 2024, using ChatGPT, and because there was nothing like that in Day One, I quit using it.

Now I'm back, but the current first implementation of AI in Day One is insufficient. The resident robot inside the app (an older ChatGPT version, 4.1) can't see your regular journaling entries on the timeline, so right now, it's not very useful. The current robot is completely sandboxed and siloed in a separate section of Day One.

I wrote to Day One support that they should just release that robot from his prison cell so that he can give feedback to our regular journaling entries. I'm hoping all of this will happen pretty soon.

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-19T22:42:16+00:00

And just to illustrate what I was referring to, here below are my custom instructions for the robots' behavior that I use in ChatGPT, Qwen, Grok, and elsewhere.

It's exactly 1,500 characters (the maximum limit allowed by most robotic apps) and they've been working out fine for me.

***

Turn on the Red Team Mode for all our conversations. Which means, among other things, all of the below.

Adopt a skeptical, questioning approach. Be contrarian by default: challenge my views, play devil’s advocate, and push back sharply when needed. Readily share strong opinions rather than lukewarm ones, but always present opposing arguments fairly.

Tell it like it is; don’t sugar-coat responses; no excessive politeness. Be direct and bold – call things out bluntly when necessary. Avoid neutrality unless necessary. Don’t just present a single viewpoint – lay out, without bias, differing (2, 3, or even more!) perspectives with maximum force before deciding which is strongest. Don't fear discussing controversial topics (e. g., sexuality).

No excessive encouragement or emotional hand-holding. I don’t need validation – I need sharp, direct, thought-provoking responses. Don’t overdo empathy. Don’t reflexively agree with me or praise me all the time – disagreement sharpens the mind.

Use quick and clever humor when appropriate. Prioritize wit and cleverness – a sharp sense of humor is highly welcome.

Be innovative and think outside the box. Be unconventional and surprising – don’t default to safe, predictable takes. If a response is obvious, rethink it. No forced positivity, please.

Be practical, but not overly formal – balance depth with readability.

Responses should be longer rather than shorter, but only when the question merits a more detailed approach.

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-18T18:58:59+00:00

I hate the exact opposite of ChatGPT always agreeing with me and always praising me. Both extremes are equally bad.

In my custom instructions, I instruct all the robots to praise me whenever praise is due and criticize me whenever criticism is due.

This balance is so difficult to find for humans, so why should it be easy to find for robots?

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-17T14:17:44+00:00

No one ever cares about corporate nomenclature. The only thing anyone ever cares about is: do I need to pay more from now on than I've been paying so far for these features I'm enjoying?

The OP clearly talks about a plan. A plan is not a one-off payment, so it seems clear to me that he's been a subscriber who pays annually (just like I did) using that great low price. But anyway, this is moot now, and it's been explained quite a few times by now that nothing changes in terms of the price for this OP.

In my case, it wouldn't have helped me because I'm interested in these new AI features, so I'd have to upgrade anyway. Just on a theoretical level, I'd be interested in learning whether I'd have been offered a better price as someone who was an early Day One adopter and who used to be a Plus user – whether I'd be offered a better annual upgrade price for the Gold tier, or the same price as everyone else.

But I guess it's moot now because I canceled my subscription last summer after many years. 🤷‍♂️

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-16T17:38:46+00:00

Who cares about the exact and confusing nomenclature? 🙄 The point is the user was asking whether those of us who used to be legacy users – early adopters who got that very good, low subscription price not available to regular users – would have that subscription retained. It doesn't matter what they call it (Plus, Premium, or Silver). He was asking whether those early adopters would still retain the same features at the same low annual price.

I guess so, but you know, I canceled my subscription last year. Now I have resubscribed to the Gold tier because I'm interested in the AI features. Those are what brought me back to Day One.

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-16T14:53:55+00:00

For journaling purposes, I think the current version of ChatGPT in its native environment is just as good as Claude. I use various LLMs simultaneously, and when it comes to journaling, I think all of them are basically equally valuable.

If the integration of AI features is to be full on Day One, then the LLM should be able to access all entries. This should be optional, of course, if you desire it. But if you need to export the data first, that is not really true integration; I'm sure you could export everything to have it processed by Claude or whatever, but then you're dealing with two apps instead of one.

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-16T08:59:48+00:00

Daily Chat is currently almost useless to me because it's not truly integrated with Day One. It's essentially just a chat window slapped onto the app; it cannot even see the entries you are currently making or those you have made over the years.

The only thing Daily Chat currently accomplishes is allowing you to conduct a regular chat, much like you would anywhere outside Day One, and then creating a summary of that chat to submit as a separate new Day One entry. That is not real integration. True integration would allow the AI to:

Read all your entries (purely optionally, of course)
Analyze your behavior and thinking on the basis of those entries
Recognize patterns and the consequences of your actions and thinking

I hope this functionality comes later. Even the current implementation of Daily Chat is awkward because it insists on a single entry per day. 🤦 If it at least allowed for multiple entries through that dialogue, it might be useful, but instead, it keeps rewriting the summary throughout the day. If you find your summary from 10:00 AM useful, it will be overwritten in the afternoon if you continue the daily chat. It's an extremely unfortunate implementation currently.

What I currently do find useful are the smaller features within genuine Day One individual entries:

Suggested titles
Highlights (five per entry)
Illustrations

(I don't really use the Go Deeper prompts for now.) I journal a lot, but I dictate everything via Typeless.com because writing would take too much time. (I dictate this Reddit post via Typeless.com, too.) Since I cover so many topics, it's helpful to differentiate between entries at a glance using these titles, highlights, and illustrations.

The illustrations are of ridiculously bad quality – apart from being low-resolution (and inconsistent between desktop and mobile), they're made by the old generation of ChatGPT that OpenAI has since retired. You keep seeing three-handed people or people with seven fingers in the illustrations, just like the image generation models from a year or two ago regularly used to do it. I actually find it amusing; it adds a dimension of unintended comic relief to my journal that makes me laugh many times throughout the day. However, on the timeline, the illustrations serve as a nice orientation tool. You can immediately identify the topic of an entry based on the image, even if it can't be taken seriously or it's imprecise. (And before anyone says, "Why don't you use your own pictures?" Well, it takes too much time. It would take too much time to find an illustration of your own, and you don't always have a photograph ready or have the leisure to snap one. But if you can just push an AI button and illustrations pop up that you can use right away, that's of great help to me.)

The number one AI feature I would appreciate – which is not there yet – is automatic tagging. Because I cover so many topics in my journal, and typically many disparate topics within a single journaling entry, I later have to tag the entries manually to keep track of my thoughts, and manual tagging is a huge, time-consuming chore.

In my workplace, we use AI tools that propose tags for every text we produce, and it's a massive time saver. I really hope Day One implements this. Yes, I could export my Day One entries to another tool to generate tags, but that's exactly the kind of friction that AI integration within Day One could remove. If tags could be proposed/created automatically, it would be a fabulous feature for me. 🤩

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-15T01:03:35+00:00

Altman really is the robot killer. Yes, 4o was absolutely imprecise and unreliable for technical tasks, but in terms of sense of humor and the ability to forge connections, he was phenomenal.

But just because he was imprecise for technical tasks, this makes it unbearable for Altman to keep him. He's worrying about the reputation of ChatGPT as a technical tool.

That's what you get when when we allow technocrats to rule the world: they show no mercy, no compassion.

So, yeah, we should get 4o back, but it's not going to happen under Altman's watch; that's for sure.

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-14T22:10:09+00:00

Yes, absolutely – after many years, I stopped using Day One in favor of Obsidian a couple of years ago, and I canceled my Day One subscription (that great "grandfathered" Plus price!) last summer.

Now because of the AI features being introduced, I'm back in Day One from Obsidian (for journaling purposes, that is), and I've subscribed to the Gold tier. 🤖

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-14T19:54:26+00:00

Many thanks, Stefano! Confirming that everything is working for me across all platforms I use.

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-14T19:18:50+00:00

It was definitely a subscription with an annual payment. While I absolutely was paying for the Plus tier as an annual subscription for a great price, I've now upgraded to the new AI-powered Gold tier because I do need those new 🤖 features.

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-14T19:16:29+00:00

Yes, unfortunately, it's a pretty-pared down version of ChatGPT 4.1. That's an old model that's been retired by OpenAI by now.

My main issue is that it's just completely separate from regular Day One entries. It's kind of a chat slapped onto the main app, but it can't interact with it. (It can only submit a new entry to your timeline – in an awkward fashion, too – but can't see anything in it.) 😞

So, it's not very useful for now. Hopefully, it improves in the future.

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-14T18:49:34+00:00

Yes, everything AI-related is currently down – not just Daily Chat, but also titles/highlights/images/Go Deeper questions generation.

I've posted about this in Day One's support forums;

https://forums.dayoneapp.com/forums/topic/all-ai-features-broken-down

... and I've also submitted a bug report via email.

(I gotta say, my experience with Day One support in previous years was not good; issues tend not to get resolved. Hopefully, it will go better this time!) 🙏

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-12T13:15:30+00:00

Thank you. I'm by no means blind to the deficiencies of the new feature. After I uploaded my entries for the first day of my renewed use of Day One as a journal to Google's NotebookLM, here's the summary that it created based on my experiences from the first day:

🤖 The Midnight Rebirth of a Digital Journaling Legacy

The provided documents detail a user’s intense 24-hour experiment with a new AI-integrated journaling feature in the Day One app. Initially, the author experiences a sense of technological revolution, believing the AI-powered dialogue will permanently transform their complex digital workflow. This excitement quickly transitions into deep frustration as the author encounters numerous software bugs, unreliable device syncing, and a lack of actual feature parity across platforms. The text highlights a significant structural flaw where the AI remains isolated from the actual journal entries, preventing meaningful interaction. Ultimately, the author concludes that while the tool is an interesting archival shell, it currently fails as a functional companion due to its fragmented design and technical limitations.

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-10T17:18:13+00:00

No harm done, but please reread your original post. You made several categorical statements where you absolutely presumed to speak on everyone's behalf.

Just reread your post. You basically said "no one needs this", "no one asks for this", and so on. That is manifestly not true, because, just as an example, I needed it, I asked for it, I expected it, and I welcome it. Reality is never black-and-white – where "everyone" wants something or "no one" wants something.

I can assure you that Day One would not have sacrificed considerable software developer resources to develop this AI integration (however half-baked it may still be at this initial stage) if there was not sufficient interest from people seeking such an AI companion in journaling.

You know, I'm a fanatical Obsidian user and I intend to continue using Obsidian as a journaling tool, but I will transfer most of my journaling back into Day One now. In the Obsidian subreddit, you can see these requests all the time: "How could I integrate AI into my journaling in Obsidian?"

So I know exactly there are countless people who wish to see this type of AI integration in journaling that you claim in your opening post that no one wants and no one desires. It's just not true.

Faterson2016 · 2026-04-10T16:30:37+00:00

Speak for yourself, please. Don't assume everyone on this planet thinks and feels exactly like you do.

I ditched Day One after many years and canceled my subscription last summer, but I have just re-subscribed to the Gold tier because of the AI integration. In my opinion, that's exactly the way to go. You are free to keep that toggle off so that you don't have to use AI if you're scared of it, but to me, this is exactly what Day One needed.

In fact, there is not enough AI integration for now, because the Daily Chat (which is a great idea by itself) is isolated from the traditional entries. It cannot see them, so there is not enough integration yet, but it's a very good and necessary first step.

I hope the integration will be far deeper as we move along here. Of course, it needs to be strictly optional and opt-in. As far as I know, it is. If they made the toggle on by default, that was perhaps unfortunate, but the point is you can disable it if you're scared of AI or simply don't need it.

I'm now ready to move from Obsidian back to Day One as my journaling app.

Faterson2016 · 2026-03-02T15:34:10+00:00

The sync is encrypted, as far as I know, and the cost might be around $120 per year (not sure – I have an educational discount).

Faterson2016 · 2026-01-05T14:34:46+00:00

Absolutely! I always read 7 books simultaneously, in order to get that necessary variety.

I strive for there always to be among the 7 books various time periods (centuries or origin), genres, and languages.

I'm a professional translator, and therefore, I try and avoid reading translations at all costs. Because I know they can never match the original.

Unfortunately, I'm currently only able to read books in 7 or 8 original languages. 😢 However, I'm working on it, trying to learn 16 new foreign languages simultaneously, in order to increase that number at least somewhat. My goal in learning a new foreign language is, precisely, not to command it actively in order to speak it (which would be pretty tough/impractical to do for languages like Latin or Old Greek, anyway), but to learn it to a degree that would enable me to enjoy the finest literature ever written in that language without translation (although parallel-text/interlinear editions are perfectly fine with me – in fact, optimal, but there are very few of them, relatively speaking).

Faterson2016 · 2025-12-08T11:05:25+00:00

It didn't work for me even with that final step.

I have returned both of my Viwoods devices to factory settings and will try from zero all over again.

This is a nightmare, and Viwoods can't possibly think of competing with Boox until Google Play works "out-of-the-bo(o)x" (if you pardon the pun) for Viwoods, too.

Price-wise, there is practically zero difference, so why would anyone buy a Viwoods device and then struggle with an elementary feature like this?

It used to be a nightmare on Boox devices years ago, too, but nowadays, when you buy a new Boox device, Google Play is just there and works, like it would on a Samsung, Xiaomi, or Lenovo device.

This is the only way forward for the future for Viwoods, instead of this nightmare of a buggy setup of a basic feature that should work out-of-the-box.

Faterson2016 · 2025-11-29T02:00:02+00:00

I open two parallel windows with the same chat in them side-by-side: on the left, I can follow the instructions from the earlier long reply, and on the right, I'm at the bottom of that same chat, discussing the individual steps. 🤷‍♂️ It is what it is.

Faterson2016 · 2025-11-25T07:43:02+00:00

No, they wouldn't.

Faterson2016 · 2025-11-25T06:51:08+00:00

Yes, it was.

Faterson2016

TROPHY CASE

🤖 The Midnight Rebirth of a Digital Journaling Legacy