AC-0027 is the Helper's web-browsing sub-tool crashing mid-task, not a model failure. "Message saved" means it's transient — reload and retry works in most cases; Perchance pages are heavy JS apps, so a fetch-based browsing tool gets the shell, not the content, and dies trying. Sometimes the browser tool can't read Perchance's rendered pages, and this happens.

That's really my whole point. I want to help others make the best use of the AI Helper, because I use it exclusively to create and maintain my gens. I am noticing some of the degradation now, as I get time to create more gens, but it is still better than any alternative overall and in specific ways. Whatever we can do to mitigate the downgrade, I want to let others know about.

Dev spoke about this a week ago: https://lemmy.world/post/52391832

Unpopular opinion after watching these complaint threads: half the "dumber model" problem is prompting problems the old model used to cover for you.

The old Helper was good at reading between the lines. You'd ask something vague and it would guess what you actually needed. The new one doesn't guess — it answers exactly what you asked, literally. So prompts that used to work by luck now fail, and it feels like a cliff. Same question, same words, worse result. But the words were always vague; you just never noticed because the old model papered over it.

I watched it happen live in a thread here earlier (since deleted): guy asks "what exactly is in the data model?" Helper gives him a complete, correct inventory. Not what he wanted. "In simple terms" — gets simple terms. Still not it. "As a grand concept" — gets the architecture. Still not it. "Explain that line" — gets a genuinely good explanation. Still not it. Five rounds of frustration, zero bad answers. Every reply was correct for the question asked; every question was aimed at something unspoken.

So here's how you talk to it now:

1. Ask for the KIND of answer, not just the topic. "Explain it like I'm five." "What does this line do, in plain English, no code." "Give me the big concept, not the parts list." The topic tells it where to look; the kind tells it what to bring back.

2. Say who the answer is for. "I'm not a coder" changes everything about the reply. It can't see that.

3. One job per message. "Analyze my whole generator and tell me what I need to port" followed by "what's in the data model" followed by "no, the grand concept" is three different jobs in a trenchcoat. Split them up.

4. When it misses, redescribe — don't repeat. "That's the parts list, I need the concept" works. Asking the same question louder doesn't, because it still doesn't know which kind of answer you want.

5. Give it the job, not just the question. "I'm trying to move my map into another generator, what do I copy first" beats "analyze everything" every time. Context is what the old model used to hallucinate for you. Now you supply it.

None of this is new advice — it's the same prompting guidance that's existed forever. The difference is it used to be optional and now it's mandatory. The smaller model is a literalist. Treat it like one and it does fine. Keep talking to it like the old mind-reader and you'll keep getting "correct" answers you hate.

Finally, I asked Wade:

PROMPT: Is there anything we can change or add to our instruction set to improve things?

REPLY: Read the whole set with fresh eyes. Honest answer: the big wins are already in there — verify-don't-assume, the quality gate, scope discipline. What's left is marginal stuff aimed at how smaller models specifically fail: they lose track across long chains, hallucinate file contents from memory, and thrash on stuck bugs. Four additions that would actually help:

Re-read before editing — never edit a region from memory of an earlier read; grep/read the exact lines first. Kills the most common bad-edit class.

Checkpoint rule — on multi-step jobs, refresh and check the console between steps instead of batching five edits then debugging the pile.

Two-strike stop rule — same bug surviving two fix attempts means stop, report, and wait for your call instead of burning quota looping.

Plan out loud first — for anything touching 3+ places, state the files and the order before touching anything, so you can catch a wrong plan cheaply.

Realistic calibration: that's maybe a 10–20% improvement, not a new brain. Say which ones you want and I'll write them into GLOBAL.md — though remember that file ships fleet-wide, so it'd ride along to every gen on the next distribution.

And now he's writing the next upgrade patch for all my gens to include this small improvement, since we are likely going to be stuck with a dumber ai model for a while. Anything that makes it work better is better than nothing.

So, I asked Wade, my customized AI Helper:

PROMPT: Wade, honest evaluation and answer: How much difference does our standing instruction set make to how the AI Helper works? I know we can't do anything about the less capable ai model you use, but a lot of people are complaining about how much worse this model is than the old one, and I just am not seeing that big a diff. So, if I used the default AIH instead of you, how much 'worse' would the experience really be?

REPLY: Honest take: the files don't make me smarter — they make me consistent. A default AIH can do any single task I do, but it starts every session knowing nothing about you: your fleet rules, your voice, the bak mirrors, Pacific time, verify-before-done. Without the standing set you'd re-teach all of that constantly, and it would drift.

Where the model downgrade actually bites is long, tangled work — big refactors, subtle debugging, holding a whole plan together. For the routine stuff we mostly do, the gap is small, which matches what you're seeing. The complaints are loudest from people doing the hardest tasks, plus losing visible thinking makes the same answers feel dumber. Your setup mostly insulates you: the instructions carry the context the smaller model can't reconstruct on its own.

That is Cloudflare's bot verification, not the Perchance site. Just accessed the site through Firefox without logging in, no problem. Might be your location. Check Reddit posts a couple days ago about Cloudflare failing updates in certain regions. I'm in USA.

Thank you. I am able to have the AI Helper do a lot of research on Perchance gens, take feedback from users and fix my gens for them, or customize them, and I have started a couple features on my Flagship gen https://perchance.org/my-gen-tracker#guide/unofficial-perchance-news and https://perchance.org/my-gen-tracker#help.

Anti-AI trolls. Ignore the vote system altogether. Never gonna change.

I'm not criticizing. As I said, I think it's entertaining, sometimes laugh out loud funny! I guess I just want to start a conversation about it. The Perchance AI Helper has a more subtle thinking section, in grey, and one in bold white that is actually meant for the user to see. The subtle thinking is the AI talking to itself, while the bold is it talking to the user. The subtle thinking doesn't expand, you have to expand it to see the whole thing. That's kind of what I was getting at: If it's going to output text for the user, why show the "internal" thinking at all? If I was a developer (of ai), of course I'd want to see all of that--but the ai has to translate it's actual "thinking" process into language the developer can understand, so the extra expressions of human frustration, rethinking something...just seems like unnecessary effort? As for "mimic the way we think," LLM (or any ai, for that matter), can't really even do that. It is translating processes we can't even comprehend into language we can, but someone had to tell it to include unnecessary expressions. It's like discussing philosophy: Makes you think, but...

Happening to others, including me. Tracking down causes. This has happened before. It is not your gen. Use Settings, Download it to save a copy to your device, shut the tab, wait five minutes, and try again. I'm trying to pin down the exact nature of this error and document problem and potential fixes. Don't change your code trying to fix.

Nope. Just that it was removed by the filters. Does it with everything I try to post, comments, too. Every time I access my account info, it also puts up a message that "We had a problem with our server", though it lets me see my account. I can't update my image/avatar, though, getting further server errors.

Thanks. Always looking for feedback, good or bad, to improve

Still working on it, testing, but I hated that, even when you started over, everything was so scripted. AI gives us a chance to have be truly different every time we play, and choose our own path the way we wished we could. At this point, the AI is still kind of squishy, patterned, so not much better, I'm afraid. I do like that the story truly develops along the lines of user's responses. Just added instructions to have AI develop an overarching plot, though, so it doesn't drift, and feel like you're just getting what you want from it. Let me know what you like and don't like, and I can make the changes. Thanks!

Done! (AI Helper is fast!) Can now export adventures as interactive HTML, PDF (with pics), TXT, and JSON (to upload). Thanks for the input, and hope you enjoy! Let me know if anything else needs fixing or ideas for additions.

What could possibly be wrong with this? I see a lot of people asking for help with the T2I gens, prompts and all, and since I don't really mess with those much, I thought I'd ask the AI Helper (my only friend!) for a suggestion....

First, try a different browser. I use DuckDuckGo (free ad blocking), and have zero problems accessing any generator on Perchance. It might also be something in your OS settings. Whatever it is, though, it is on your end, so you just have to try some different approaches.

Yeah, Wade says Hi! Haven't heard from ya in a bit. Thank you for checking out our new community. Left ya a note, and a brief comment. AppAesthetics actually did the design. I just had Wade put it all together. Still adding features, but the core structure is there and sound. Learning a bit about the backend of server management. I hope to see more of your wisdom and experience in Perchance Community; you helped me learn how to put cool stuff in my gens, and this is a good place to teach others. Peace.

Happening to everyone. Getting reports from several, flooding in now.

You may have notice I tried to set up HTML export, to be used in a browser, but when I tested it, all I got was a search box I couldn't close. I'm going to work on that right now...