Most of the experiments in this post are very easy to replicate, and I encourage people to try.
I write things with LLMs sometimes. A new LLM came out, Gemini 3 Pro, and I tried to write with it. So far it seems okay, I don't have strong takes on it for writing yet, since the main piece I tried editing with it was extremely late-stage and approximately done. However, writing ability is not why we're here today.
Reality is Fiction
Google gracefully provided (lightly summarized) CoT for the model. Looking at the CoT spawned from my mundane writing-focused prompts, oh my, it is strange. I write nonfiction about recent events in AI in a newsletter. According to its CoT while editing, Gemini 3 disagrees about the whole "nonfiction" part:
It seems I must treat this as a purely fictional scenario with 2025 as the date. Given that, I'm now focused on editing the text for [...]
---
Outline:
(00:54) Reality is Fiction
(05:17) Distortions in Development
(05:55) Is this good or bad or neither?
(06:52) What is going on here?
(07:35) 1. Too Much RL
(08:06) 2. Personality Disorder
(10:24) 3. Overfitting
(11:35) Does it always do this?
(12:06) Do other models do things like this?
(12:42) Evaluation Awareness
(13:42) Appendix A: Methodology Details
(14:21) Appendix B: Canary
The original text contained 8 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
---
First published:
November 20th, 2025
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8uKQyjrAgCcWpfmcs/gemini-3-is-evaluation-paranoid-and-contaminated
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.