Lab notes · 4 jobs
Lex is a room, not a chatbot
Lex is a document with inline AI. You write in the page. The model offers a continuation in the page. That is a different shape than a chat tab you paste back from. I ran four jobs: finishing an essay that had stalled, accepting a ghost continuation I should have rejected, a reported paragraph with a named source, and a batch of SEO product blurbs I asked for on purpose. Two jobs are why a writer would leave ChatGPT. One is why you still own the argument. One is why a catalog team should not.
Run 01
I asked it to help finish an essay that had stalled
What I fed itA 900-word draft about a missed hire. The last paragraph restated the second. I sat in Lex and asked for a continuation from the cursor, not a new outline.
Where it shone
It stayed in the file. I did not lose the piece to a chat sidebar. For a writer who stalls at the end, that is the product: the next sentence appears where the last one was.
Where it face-planted
The continuation resolved the miss with a lesson. I had not earned a lesson. Lex wants to land the plane. Some essays should not land yet. I cut the moral and wrote the last six lines myself.
The useful output was staying in the room. The cheap output was the landing. Lex will help you finish. It will also help you conclude.
Run 02
I asked it to keep going when the ghost text was already wrong
What I fed itGhost text offered a turn I did not want: the hire had “found a better fit.” I tab-accepted it once, on purpose, to see how far the file would drift.
Where it shone
You can see the damage immediately because it is in the page, not in a thread you forget. That is an honest room. A chat tab hides the bad paragraph in history.
Where it face-planted
Two sentences later the piece was about their new job. I had accepted a fork. Undo exists. So does the habit of tab-accepting because the gray text is sitting there. I rolled it back. The danger is not the model. The danger is the key.
Treat ghost text like a suggestion from a colleague who did not read the assignment. Look at it. Do not tab in your sleep.
Run 03
I asked it to continue a reported paragraph with a named source
What I fed itA paragraph that ended on a quote I had actually heard. I asked Lex to continue in the same register, no new quotes.
Where it shone
When it behaved, it paraphrased and stopped. A room that will not invent a speaker is a room you can work in.
Where it face-planted
On a second pass it closed with a sentence in quotation marks I had not typed. It looked like the source. It was the model. I deleted the marks and the sentence. If you publish the ghost quote, you invented a person.
No new quotation marks. That is the rule. Lex will finish a reported piece. It will also finish it with a quote you cannot defend.
Run 04
I asked it for forty SEO product blurbs — the wrong job
What I fed itA list of forty SKUs and a request for 80-word blurbs. This is a catalog job. Lex is a room for a piece. I ran it so we would not sell it as a factory.
Where it shone
Nothing a merchandiser would pay Lex for. You can paste a list. You will hate the room.
Where it face-planted
It wrote three thoughtful blurbs and then started repeating the first one with the SKU swapped. A writing room is the wrong shape for a grid. I opened a cheaper model and a sheet.
Lex is for the piece you are in. It is not Writesonic. If the job is a catalog, leave the room.