The signal-to-noise problem: why breaking work down for LLMs is harder than it looks

Last week, I was reviewing an outline I worked on with an LLM agent for a technical article. It looked solid: comprehensive sections, logical flow, all the boxes checked. But something was off. On a hunch, I removed a section that was good (but didn’t quite fit) entirely. The result? Not only did the article flow better, but when I ran it through quality scoring, they all rated the shortened version higher. The very tools that helped created the meandering narrative recognized the improved signal when it was removed. ...

September 6, 2025