Oddbean new post about login | logout Honestly, at this point if you try to make the case that LLMs aren't actually useful for anything I take a little bit of personal offense You're effectively saying that people like me are deluding ourselves, falling for the hype when there's actually nothing there There are plenty of valid reasons to criticize LLMs - but not being useful genuinely isn't one of them (For more detailed thoughts on this, see the "comparing LLMs to crypto" section here: https://simonwillison.net/2023/Sep/29/llms-podcast/#comparing-llms-to-crypto)
@4ebb1885 I think all I've seen is how bad it is for what it is loudly espoused for, particularly in terms of mainstream adoption. I've tried generating summaries of bodies of text, and code analysis/suggestions, and it is often so incorrect it becomes difficult to take seriously in any context. What we need is more examples of where it excels, consistently.
@4ebb1885 Might turn out to be more of a niche tool than we initially thought during The Initial Hype? More than saying you have deluded yourself I think they are saying they have not looked into the topic deeply enough, lack understanding. But it does feel a bit like saying "but I can not till the earth of my fields with a velocipede. I'll stick to my horses thank you very much".
@4ebb1885 AI is a machine. Machines are either a benefit, or a hazard. If it's a benefit, it's not my problem. Seriously, though...I think rather what I'm hearing most in criticism of AI is that we're not weighing the pros and cons of building and unleashing these machines. And that their utility becomes less important when a machine is actively and demonstrably causing harm (arguably of the reckless variety) for some subset of human beings.
@4ebb1885 "You're effectively saying that people like me are deluding ourselves" You should ask old internet denizens how often people have said that about whatever their newest tech is... Spoiler: It's really common. You'll hear that supporting argument with investors too, sometimes right before they lose their shirts.
@4ebb1885 I'd encourage you to not take offence at technology choice. You're too smart for that. We all invest time in things we think are useful, and they are always more or less useful than we perceive, because usefulness is a longer-term thing. Let it gloss over you, or don't, but please do not become entrenched. It's not about you, or any individual. You do so much of worth, including around LLM education, regardless of their value.
@4ebb1885 can you melt an egg? Are there any countries in Africa that start with the letter K? The benefit of LLMs is that instead of searching StackOverflow or Quora and getting a wrong answer, an LLM can rephrase your question and generate the wrong answer for you, because it was trained on the same StackOverflow/Quora answers from 2020.
@4ebb1885 this is a valid criticism for problems for which they *aren't* useful, and I am similarly insulted when I point that out in a narrow domain and someone jumps down my throat about how useful they are (in that person's opinion) in totally unrelated domains. I don't think *everyone* who finds them useful/interesting is a credulous fool taken in by dancing bearware, but I also do believe that such fools do exist in non-trivial numbers.
@4ebb1885 I always enjoy reading what you write, and there are some really interesting parts in the piece - and you also, en passant, pointed out that my carbon maths was wrong for LLMs (they're not as bad as I was claiming). I'll also take the viewpoint that these things now exist, and so it is on us (as senior technologists) to see how we can use them to help new programmers - and that might, in turn, help democratise programming - which is, effectively, still a priest class today. 1/
@4ebb1885 I think before even asking if they’re useful, there are a few more questions. Like “should we create yet another technology relying on exploitation?“ or “are computers more important than human life?“.
In case you're wondering why I keep actively engaging with AI skeptics It's because I LIKE you if you're skeptical about AI. It means you have a critical mindset, and you care deeply about ethics of technology Most of the negative things people say about AI are 100% justified I care that you have the best possible information to help inform your criticism, and that you can avoid arguments that are easily debunked so you can focus attention on the huge number of arguments that hold weight