Comment by postalcoder
15 days ago
I'm using this model via API. I am most excited about its ability to write the english language (or any language). My least favorite trend on twitter has been people posting 2D illustrations/3D renders as a proxy for model capability. Well-written prose is far less likely to go viral but far outstrips the importance rendering a fantasy world in one shot.
I've been trying it out via the API and the model has been a delight so far. Clear in the head, not RL-fried, distinct writing style, and big model smell. That said, the em-dash is back w/ this model.
That said, I would be so frustrated with Sundar Pichai if I was on the Google team. The botched rollout of this model seems to be entirely a matter of capacity, and Pichai has been more than happy to give it to anybody but his own team.
I've been using it for a while internally at Google. I prefer Argon over Opus 5.5 because of the clear thinking and directness. It phrases things in an organized, straightforward way.
Interesting. My favorite LLM output ever was the reasoning traces in gemini 2.5 pro. I found them much easier to understand than the "final output", because they were very structured and concise. Of course, they ended up hiding the reasoning, not long after that, like everyone else... sad!
Same here, especially the march edition. It was incredible. I thought Google will run away with it.
I haven't tried Argon, but for writing, I actually prefer 3.8 Flash over any GPT and Opus.
If true, this will be a gigantic departure from any model Google have released to date. I’m hopeful but also pretty skeptical.
I feel Argon is about as good as Opus 5.5 but I find Opus annoyingly sarcastic and incomprehensible.
I know it's a matter of personal taste but it reminds me of a grad student that tries to sound smarter than he is by being dismissive and opaque.
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I have used it as well. It is very dense, but it cites with evidence and has a direct and straightforward approach and manner. It doesn't really have a "tone" or mannerisms the way Opus 5 did. It follows instructions and sticks with pretty clean language by default. Argon is solid and handles long horizon well.
Em dashes are underappreciated — they are visually pleasing, not cluttery like semicolons or definitive like colons.
I have a pet theory that there's some overlap of writing patterns that A) indicate quality, clear communication and B) those that the LLMs have been converging on. As a result, we're ruining the reputation of some great writing patterns because we've associated it with AI slop.
My pet theory is that this was happening, because labs naturally worked to source highest quality data sources they could get. Even if they initially slurped everything indiscriminately, the obvious next step is to sort them by "quality", and bias towards the high end while trimming from low end.
So obviously, government documents, top publications from liberal arts scholars and STEM > Wikipedia > Reddit (and within, r/AskHistorians > r/all, etc.). The first group is the one most likely to (over)use correct / fancy typography.
I have a related pet theory: the telltale sign of AI writing is being too good for the context it's found in, in terms of vocabulary and style as well as structure.
What is jarring about this is precisely the quality - we associate certain styles with important (or self-important) venues, so it's uncanny to suddenly see random shitposts, copywriting spam, or regular chat replies look like work of NYT bestselling authors or legal scholars - it feels wrong in places we expect basic language, grug-brain reasoning, and lots of typos.
Also, what makes the above much more noticeable, is that AI systems don't have cross-session stylistic memory. From the POV of an LLM, that perfectly fitting, masterfully crafted starter is the first and only time it used it. From the user's POV, it's the tenth time they're seeing it in the span of an hour.
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Continue to write with em dashes. Be the change you wish to see in the world.
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It is not because those patterns have no use. It is because LLMs overdo it.
Every point is delivered with grandeur and rhetorical flourish. It is hard to reward 'negative space', a simple writing, A to B, vanilla pattern.
I think it's because it starts writing the final output and doesn't have the ability to go back and correct. It's like a stream of consciousness bandaid
They were in models in the first place because they are used ubiquitously published formal writing. As, of course, are semicolons. There is nothing wrong with using punctuation for nuance and structure.
I feel like the LLMs used them "wrong". They use them for hard breaks for disconnected thoughts rather than one thought that disconnects.
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Em dashes are commonly used in most countries that speak English. I get the feeling that people from the USA don’t use them often and now have tarnished the use of them.
Do you remember when the AIs were all writing with bullet points all the time? I miss that! I'd prefer that to the current more-information-density-than-any-human-would-ever-muster approach where sentences are packed so deep you can't get any meaning by skimming.
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Like many other LLM tropes they were heavily overused which attracted attention. Normal English writing doesn't average 1 em dash per 2-3 sentences like I would often see during Peak Em Dash.
They aren't a complete rarity by any means but still relatively uncommon compared to the typical punctuation one sees in routine usage.
I loved em dashes back in high school and my English teacher would have definitely returned an assignment with a lot of red marks if I used em dashes as frequently as an LLM (speaking from experience).
Most complaints about AI writing are people telling on themselves for not reading broadly.
The dashes reveal AI generated text. For me a trigger to further ignore the text.
Because you ignored them before someone told you about them.
in all of my writing I use parenthesis in basically the same way (you know to explain the addendum of information).
See, the problem is when em-dashes are used like you just did, they are fine and even expected. But LLMs use them differently. Here is a fresh example, from today:
"Binds the downstream RF port template—which we configured earlier—to this RPD profile, applying all global DS settings and channel structures to the node's downstream hardware."
Do you see the problem in comparison? The LLM text is assuredly not how humans write. Well, maybe you would find similar examples in the classic literature, but definitely not in a common internet texting or simple articles and posts.
can confirm this. I didn't have high expectations for AI writing good long-form content in Indonesian. However, I recently tested it on some of my Indonesian writings and asked Argo to rewrite them while maintaining the original tone—and it absolutely nailed it.
I missed the em dash — ngl
As a longtime user of em dashes, I refuse to change my style because bots happen to agree with my choice of punctuation.
Well, I have to change the way I write at times because my comment gets automatically flagged. :/ Not fun.
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It cops hate because people try to pass off LLM written text as their own, then get pissed when called out on it.
If you just want good llm text, it’s great.
me too. it's like a fingerprint of ai. I think ai should be proud to be itself and be ai.
Yeah, I never got the hate. If it reads well who cares if it's not something a human does much?
I think there was a lot of misplaced hate of the em-dash due to all the low-qualify AI slop people were trying to pass off as their own for a while.
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> Well-written prose is far less likely to go viral but far outstrips the importance rendering a fantasy world in one shot.
I'm not entirely sure you're correct. Your claim boils down to "Writing natural human prose" vs "Broad use of complex software and spatial awareness". My gut feeling is that there's more untapped and fruitful applications in the second group than the first - at least in the short term.
I was kinda hoping I'd get to the end and it would say, "In fact, this entire post was drafted by Argon!"
> far outstrips the importance rendering a fantasy world in one shot.
Given FelonyBench, do we also have a FantasyBench?
What was botched about it?
Announced the model two weeks ago to a ton of hype, model was unavailable for anyone to try. On twitter, Google folks went on a great run taking shots at Muse ("Muse who?"). The hype died down bc nobody could touch the models and meta/muse came out with a similarly capable model in the meanwhile.
At the same time, OpenAI had a disastrous dev day that led a lot of users to jump ship to Claude.
Couple weeks later, Gemini-4-argon is still unavailable on anything less than the ultra tier, which means there's no natural funnel to get ppl to pay for the more expensive ultra plan other than "trust us the model is good".
If Google had argon broadly available earlier this month they would have picked up a ton of new users.
As someone internal at Google I don't understand why there's so much criticism of Google models... but right now I'm using the next model beyond Argon, and Flash 3.8. In my personal Gemini app I only have access to 3.5.
Models move so fast now and Google is very cautious about releasing them.
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All the power users are always jumping around by now and many hold the smallest subscription with all the models or at least two.
Narrating this as if it’s the game of thrones is a fun exercise, but it’s just becoming commonplace now that models jump ahead of each other on a weekly to Monthly basis.
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Why did people jump to Claude? I redirected company resources to OpenAI Pro 500 accounts and away from Anthropic for most use.
We’re all running on Astra medium the whole week and loving it.
I’m curious what I missed.
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Just for the record, I'm a Spanish user with Google AI pro (€20 per month or so) and my app has Argon now. (Yay!)
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"model was unavailable for anyone to try"
Oh yeah. Completely forgot about that. Big headlines and big claims, but no one could actually use it and report on it.
Does seem like they don't quite grasp how the hype train operates. Or maybe they don't care as much.
Gemini 4 is announced be available to Pro users in the Gemini app.
I mean, I heard rumors too that it would be ultra only, but that doesn't seem to be the case, unless you are specifically talking about antigravity?
Realistically, market adoption isn't going to be the result of terminally online people (like me, I confess) following things way too closely on social.
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> At the same time, OpenAI had a disastrous dev day that led a lot of users to jump ship to Claude.
Can you elaborate on this?
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Unpopular opinion: em-dash is fine
I added Gemini 4 Argon to our video creation benchmarks.
The results are a bit disappointing given Googles scale and training data.
The results are on par with cheaper Chinese open source models to be frank. https://cliphou.se/benchmark/
> That said, the em-dash is back w/ this model.
noooooooo