The Lilac Review

Research, product & code

Gareth Paul Jones

Product Lead, AI at Poe / Quora

I like the part where research meets a real product.

An illustrated lilac artist’s book unfolds into cut-paper steps and arches, with a vermilion thread finding a route through them.
A thought, taking shape.Illustration · GPT-Image-2

01Working things out, in public.

Selected livestreams

  1. Evaluation

    Evals for AI Agents

    A practical look at testing agents against the work we actually expect them to do.

    Watch the session ↗1:58:35
  2. Model behavior

    Building a Multi-Signal Reward Function

    Working through how several imperfect signals can produce a more useful training objective.

    Watch the session ↗1:18:12
  3. Agent systems

    Managing Coding Agents with Swimlanes

    An operating model for keeping parallel coding agents legible, scoped, and moving.

    Watch the walkthrough ↗40:33

02From the archive

Maskito · December 2016

Gareth’s original Maskito paper mockup: a smiling face and four filter choices drawn inside a phone outline, photographed on a notebook with a pen.
The original paper prototype. Not a generated reconstruction.

The feedback was there.
I kept building.

Coffee, paper mockups, and a face-filter app that failed. An honest account of what I missed when I was too eager to build.

Read the retrospective ↗
Photograph & source

This photograph was published with my December 2016 Maskito retrospective. It shows the original paper mockup.
Read the original entry

Gareth Paul Jones
I still code because it is often the shortest route from a fuzzy idea to an honest conversation.

— Gareth