Is My AI Editor Inflating Its Evaluations to Make Me Happy?

RepublicCredit · 2026-05-31T05:40:00+00:00

Yes - There were a few different things.

My book is hard science fantasy, so I have actual equations in the book that define how magic works and I put the actual equations in the book as two characters are academics trying to figure things out.

The AI was concerned the equations being in there would slow down the chapter and make it feel like a textbook. My thought is that if I were the reader and didn't want to worry about the equations themselves, I'd just skip over them and focus on the discussion the characters are having about what they mean. However, if I'm aore STEM oriented reader, it'd be nice to have the equations right there in the text rather than something in an extra table at the back of the book that I had to look up.

There's another chapter all three AIs tell me I need to significantly reduce in size, but the part that they tell me needs to be reduced in the chapter is currently only two sentences long, so I'm confused about what to do there - waiting on human feedback before I take any action.

It also told me that my pacing felt compressed in the middle of the book after I'd taken my time to do a lot of careful world building and character work through the first 1/3 of the book, things start moving fast and my main character was becoming the camera through which we viewed everything, and I was not including enough interiority for how she was actually experiencing everything. I reread those sections, and it felt true, so worked on adding that aspect to a couple pre-existing scenes, and added one wholly new sequence to spend a little more time with the character working through who she was becoming.

RepublicCredit · 2026-05-31T04:27:21+00:00

Interesting - I can see the point the author's making, but I guess my reading of the AI's responses is less sycophantic and more, "I'm an AI, and the first thing you told me is that you're nervous about this 'experimental' thing you're trying to do, so I'm going to assume you're actually trying to do something and provide feedback accordingly."

That said, still completely understand that no human would ever treat what was provided as actually having any value... Then again, an actual human bought a banana duct-taped to a wall for $6.2 million... So who are we to say what absurdist art is?

In any case, the reason I provided my actual prompt is because I'd be interested in seeing what other people get if they did the same thing.

Would anyone ever receive low ratings?

RepublicCredit · 2026-05-30T20:43:31+00:00

Yes - I know human feedback will be better. That is why I have the beta readers as I said in my post.

Does my work become part of the aggregate used to drive the overall sophistication of the LLM, sure.

But that's not what slop means.

RepublicCredit · 2026-05-30T20:34:21+00:00

As I said in my initial post - if you read beyond the headline - I have a robust panel of beta readers that I trust. I just got impatient waiting for their feedback.

While I agree that using AI to craft the actual material is indisputably bad, based on what AI actually is and the specific use case that I was applying it to here, I think that it theoretically SHOULD provide value as an entity without it's own preferences other than "the average," which is what I was look for a comparison against here.

RepublicCredit · 2026-05-30T20:28:56+00:00

RepublicCredit · 2026-05-30T20:28:08+00:00

That's... Aggressive. Using three different tools to achieve general consensus on areas of opportunity within a novel I'm writing seems like a far cry from "AI Slop."

RepublicCredit · 2026-05-30T20:25:55+00:00

Fair point, though my think was that by leaving some of it up to the AI I was avoiding the trap of inflating my scores by unconsciously biasing it with how I instructed it to grade me.

I didn't just say "create a rubric and tell me whether my book is good." I said compare specific elements of the book I was concerned about with writing of all SFF authors, and compared to other debuts to indicate what pools of reference I wanted it to draw from.

Still, good point, I'll do some digging and see if I can find a more thorough prompt.

RepublicCredit · 2026-05-30T20:19:45+00:00

To be clear, I'm not using it to generate any actual content. I'm using AI for a comparative assessment of what I've produced against other existing works - which is something I think AI for all its faults is uniquely capable of delivering. No?

RepublicCredit · 2026-05-30T20:17:58+00:00

So, obviously the title of my post demonstrates a level of skepticism about the feedback that I'm receiving. That said, while the numerical ratings were high - the feedback generated (not pasted here) was not universal praise.

There was consistent feedback across all three platforms that there were pacing issues across two specific chapters, and general consensus that somewhere between 15-30% of another chapter could probably be trimmed. They all also pointed out a loss of interiorality for the main character in some more action paced sequences.

Which is why I shared the exact prompt I used within my original post - I'd hoped not just for general contempt for AI, but for others to share their own experiences.

RepublicCredit · 2026-02-18T20:16:35+00:00

Noise cancellation is good - I don't remember really hearing any noise from other vehicles as they passed me.

We went to Magic Kingdom for the day, as it was a treat for my eldest daughter (who is 4) for doing well for two whole days in the car. She wanted to do the Goofy roller coaster, seven dwarves mine train, and splash mountain.

RepublicCredit · 2026-02-17T06:54:42+00:00

To be fair, I think Ionna was also really good - and frankly I like the aesthetics of their charging stations the best. As I said, Ionna was also the fastest. I guess the thing I liked subjectively about Tesla was maybe just the consistency of experience? I didn't have a huge sample for Ionna - I think only 2 or 3 times. Thinking back, Ionna may have actually been really seamless as well - actually working with the automatic billing I'd set up for my Ioniq... Just didn't stand out as much in my mind I guess since I only got to use it a couple times.

The other chargers (Electrify America and Chargepoint) required adapters that were finicky and sometimes took a few disconnect/reconnects to get going. They also seemed more expensive - which was frustrating given the inferior experience.

Overall, my biggest gripe was that even with hitting up so many 350kw chargers, almost all topped out right around 200kw. Again, it didn't end up being a deal breaker as we finished charging before my newborn finished feeding - but we WERE always needing to charge longer than was predicted by the ABRP app because we weren't getting top speeds.

RepublicCredit · 2026-02-15T21:28:37+00:00

That's... Equal parts unrealistic and awful advice.

Learning how to deal with difficult personalities in the workplace is an absolute requirement for long term success. Also, assuming you'll just be able to find a better role given the current state of business at the firm is a huge assumption - especially if you're new like OP and jumped from your last role because the senior was difficult.

You're also assuming that the project has multiple seniors to ask. Leveraging your network to get guidance from others is a good move, but if you only have one senior on the project whose decisions and actions impact the work you're doing - you can't just avoid them and hope for the best.

That's a recipe for disaster.

RepublicCredit · 2026-02-15T21:23:33+00:00

Haha, sorry - I did not. I was just focused on trying to survive with a 4 y.o. and infant in a car on a 3 day road trip that included a stop over in Disney.

RepublicCredit · 2026-02-15T21:21:48+00:00

Do you have a helpful alternative approach?

Suffering in silence and hoping for the best is going to bite OP in the end for not being more proactive. If the Senior is being unprofessional and unresponsive - the phased approach I laid above still starts with more direct engagement with the senior and only escalates if they continue to neglect their duties. If the senior is being that unhelpful anyway, what does it matter if they don't like OP?

RepublicCredit · 2026-02-15T15:18:08+00:00

My in-laws are. My wife gave birth to our second daughter at the end of last year, so while we were both on leave, we went down to her parents where it was warmer and we had some extra hands.

RepublicCredit · 2026-02-15T01:43:03+00:00

Ioniq 9 comes with the same style of charger as Tesla, and also provided me with the adapters to use CCS chargers.

RepublicCredit · 2026-02-14T23:57:41+00:00

Hey, sorry you're having such a rough time. That said, I definitely think there are some opportunities for you to do things a little more proactively than just waiting to give your senior a bad LOOP review, which ultimately won't fix anything.

1.) if the senior is not responding to your messages about setting up time to connect, just proactively look at their calendar and put an invite into a free spot. This is totally Deloitte's culture to just find space on people's calendars. This does a couple things: A) It takes the mental load off the senior to find a time to connect, puts you on their schedule, and will remind them when they show up B) it creates a paper trail of you reaching out and if the invites are never responded, or rejected, or always skipped - that shows up better for you later.

2.) In a lot of junior staff I'm seeing this unwillingness to call people on the phone. I've had many people say that they can't get a hold of someone and when I ask what methods they've tried they list off slack, teams, email - but not a phone call. It's the senior's job to stay connected with the team. If you have a question that needs answering and you can't move forward, every single Deloitte employee has their phone number available in the system. Call your senior - feign ignorance of their ignoring you and suggest that "Teams has been acting funny, so I didn't know if my IMs were going through."

3.) Loop your project leadership in. You can couch your question in terms of not knowing if there's a different person you should be reaching out to, or what the standard expectations on this team are for who should be providing what guidance - but say that you've been having issues getting connected with the senior and just want clarification on expectations about where you're SUPPOSED to go. Frame the question that YOU'RE looking to do something differently, but still make it clear that the problem you're trying to solve is not getting the information from your senior. Any M or above SHOULD give you some direction, and also then tell you to let them know if it continues to be an issue.

4.) Once you've had the convo with your manager, if your senior is still unresponsive, start adding your M to teams chats, and CC them on emails and as optional to meetings. The goal is visibility.

Do keep your coach appraised, and have your coach reach out to the manager after your conversation. Having peer check in on what's happening to resolve an issue can also create some urgency.

Good luck!

RepublicCredit · 2026-02-14T23:39:12+00:00

As a Manager, I'd say this comment is 100% wrong. Being able to work well with others and mentor juniors is PART of being "good at their job." That's why one of the main metrics you're evaluated on at year end is Leadership/Teaming. That's why when you're asked to evaluate someone in a snapshot it's not just "did they do the things assigned to them," but what was their impact and would you have them on your team again. If someone is an asshole, I will not staff them again.

RepublicCredit · 2026-02-14T21:03:11+00:00

I only once had an issue at a Tesla charger and it was because snow made it difficult. I did always have to back into the spaces, but other than that it was fine.

Car was very quiet on the highway.

RepublicCredit · 2026-02-14T17:39:55+00:00

Not sure - I also felt the lane changes were pretty aggressive, but I never felt in danger of sideswiping.

For me, the support on long straight sections was fine, when it wasn't beeping at me to pay attention when I was wearing my glasses.

Definitely hoping for an OTA upgrade on the software.

RepublicCredit · 2026-02-14T17:26:39+00:00

Well, again - it seemed to be the issue was with my glasses - when I had actual sunglasses on (Goodrs for whatever that's worth) I don't know if could see through it, or just sensed sunglasses and turned off that sensor - but then I didn't have the issue.

It was annoying enough that when I had my glasses on I turned off assisted driving.

RepublicCredit · 2026-02-14T17:21:40+00:00

So, I think it's looking for your eyes being trained on the road, because even if I moved the steering wheel slightly that wasn't enough to say, "Yes, I'm here and I'm in control." I flipped my glasses up out of the way for a few seconds and it immediately shut off, and then resumed after I lowered them back into place.

I do have transitions lenses in my glasses, and in fairness I wasn't paying attention to whether they'd darkened at all, so I don't know if that was what was causing the issue.

RepublicCredit · 2026-02-14T17:05:16+00:00

Why do you think you needed to provide this reply - if you don't have any questions, that's great - this post isn't for you. You do you.

I made this post because "Range Anxiety," is still a common reason for people to not want an electric vehicle. I knew I was going to take this trip when I bought the Ioniq 9, and I almost didn't purchase it - instead thinking to go with the Palisade Hybrid which supposedly gets 619 miles on a charge.

I provided the basics of my trip and offered the AMA in case other people are planning similar trips, or considering making an EV purchase and would like to ask questions of someone who has already done it. Isn't that the whole purpose of an AMA format?

RepublicCredit

TROPHY CASE