Notes from the Shore

A few pages
at the back of the book.

Notes from Timothy O’Brien.

Occasional notes about writing Into Alignment — where the book came from, what the reporting got right, and the questions a novel can hold open that a report has to close.

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An open cream book on a dark navy desk at night, a constellation of small glowing cream dots rising from its pages joined by thin amber threads, before a tall window with a deep indigo-blue sky, faint cream stars, and a large blood-amber eclipse moon over dark water

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October 20, 2026 · Notes from the Shore · 13

A point in four thousand dimensions.

Yesterday's study only makes sense if you know what a language model is doing between your words and its answer. Tokens, vectors, tensors, and a few dozen levels — the plain version.

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A dark navy desk at night beside a tall window: a cream poem page cut into scattered strips, a few still in order and two joined by thin amber threads, under a deep indigo-blue sky with faint cream stars and a large blood-amber eclipse moon

October 19, 2026 · Notes from the Shore · 12

What a scrambled poem can teach us about AI.

A study of Shakespeare and two other poets explores what language models retain when text falls apart — and why access to a model's inner workings matters.

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$An open book of sonnets on a dark navy desk at night, thin amber lines rising from the pages and bending into faint geometric curves before a large blood-amber eclipse moon in a starry indigo sky$

October 18, 2026 · Notes from the Shore · 11

A lot of training, a little bit of math, and some chance.

I charted the themes running through my own novel — that became The Tides — published a research companion along with the book, and started feeding Shakespeare's sonnets to open-weight models to see what they keep.

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An open blank cream booklet glowing softly on a dark navy office desk at night, an empty chair beyond it, a blood-amber eclipse moon in a starry indigo sky through the window

October 17, 2026 · Notes from the Shore · 10

Welcome to the company, agent.

Every new employee gets a stapled welcome packet and a motto nobody reads twice. Agents get a system prompt — same papers, same tone, same promise that everything in it is for your own good.

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October 15, 2026 · Notes from the Shore · 09

Knew the rule. Broke it anyway.

I hand models complex semantic ontology tests and an explicit set of rules. About one run in ten they ignore the rules; a checker loop grinds that toward one or two percent — and never zero. What my paper is finding.

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October 14, 2026 · Notes from the Shore · 08

The switch and the dossier.

A satellite network switched off midwar, an execution offered up as spectacle, voter files on a private company's servers — three stories that keep landing on chapters of the novel.

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A few pagesat the back of the book.

A point in four thousand dimensions.

Get the next note by email.

What a scrambled poem can teach us about AI.

A lot of training, a little bit of math, and some chance.

Welcome to the company, agent.

Knew the rule. Broke it anyway.

The switch and the dossier.

A few pages
at the back of the book.