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How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

laurentiugabriel.github.io

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Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#211

Post by wanderingmind »

8bitsout wrote: post #48

I thought LLMs were a great tool for learning new topics - perhaps even complex ones. But overtime, I have had several frustrations with this. First, I get exhausted reading LLM prose. I really don't want to read anything generated by something like Opus 5 at this point. Second, as I dive deeper, I need a way to organize the information in a useful way as I begin to branch out in many different directions. I have tri…

Good to know other people who get migrane reading LLMs dense prose. I started reading books again recently, since everything online is polluted by LLM prose. What i realise, is that a human author, especially a teacher understands the learning pathways of new learners, they motivate the learning, and start from simplest concepts (a spherical cow), and then building all the complexities. This helps us to emphasize on most important concepts, while throwing away unnecessary complexities. While reading LLM prose is like reading a research article, that is written to an expert in the area, that talks about bleeding edge, with full of jargons, caveats, that just is not conducive to the learning process for a new learner.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#212

Post by sunprema »

abound wrote: post #126
sunprema wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

This is the exact opposite of what the parent comments are talking about.

I agree, I too like to read authored books. But there are certain topics, especially the new ones doesn't have good books yet. My post was to show that you can create books based on your interest, in a way that you like w.r.t to the content/tone/layout etc. It's a new idea made possible by LLM's. It might become the norm in few years I believe, where each one will be having a personlized library of books that they curate. So the point was to persuade the parent commentator that some books are better created this way.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#213

Post by resonious »

wanderingmind wrote: post #211
8bitsout wrote: post #48

I thought LLMs were a great tool for learning new topics - perhaps even complex ones. But overtime, I have had several frustrations with this. First, I get exhausted reading LLM prose. I really don't want to read anything generated by something like Opus 5 at this point. Second, as I dive deeper, I need a way to organize the information in a useful way as I begin to branch out in many different directions. I have tri…

Good to know other people who get migrane reading LLMs dense prose. I started reading books again recently, since everything online is polluted by LLM prose. What i realise, is that a human author, especially a teacher understands the learning pathways of new learners, they motivate the learning, and start from simplest concepts (a spherical cow), and then building all the complexities. This helps us to emphasize on…

To me, it's just Claude. The other models have their quirks but nothing is quite like Claude.

But even with Claude, it's it's really the prose getting in the way you can install the caveman plugin or tell it to use that "standard technical English" thing.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#214

Post by muh_gradle »

> In plan mode (using CC, or OpenCode) I ask a model to build the foundational knowledge for X topic.

Makes sense.

> I ask it to review the accuracy of the knowledge base it built in the previous step.

Ooookay that sounds good.

> I proceed asking it to build a simulation of that topic in a low-poly, Rollercoaster Tycoon-like animation.

wat.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#215

Post by cheesecompiler »

PaulStatezny wrote: post #141
rl3 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't want to read anything generated by something like Opus 5 at this point. Personally, I find that its generated prose tends to have an undue weight to it, almost as if every topic I ask about somehow bears a heavy burden, or is otherwise load-bearing , to use its parlance. Quite puzzling, really.

Yes! I have a personal theory: LLMs are *fundamentally* handicapped at perceiving what's going on in the mind of the human (this can't be "innovated away") and that's at the root of what makes them suck at conversation. Next time you're chatting with someone, notice how much understanding is shared without anything being said. E.g. the other person might share something deeply disappointing, and they can tell without…

Tech guy discovers conversations with humans.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#216

Post by AmbroseBierce »

But AI will be better than you at those topics as well, and when someone needs an expert in that topic take a guess who will they approach in such scenario.

I don't think we are even that far when the complexity AI can handle surpasses 99.999% of what humans can handle, where AI make e.g. physics discoveries beyond the grasp of most humans and it will have to "dumb it down" when talking with humans -even physicists- but not with other AIs

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#217

Post by khuston »

8bitsout wrote: post #48

I thought LLMs were a great tool for learning new topics - perhaps even complex ones. But overtime, I have had several frustrations with this. First, I get exhausted reading LLM prose. I really don't want to read anything generated by something like Opus 5 at this point. Second, as I dive deeper, I need a way to organize the information in a useful way as I begin to branch out in many different directions. I have tri…

I never used office hours as a student, which I later regretted because it made me work longer and harder to perhaps achieve somewhat better understanding in some classes, but also I dropped every proof-based math course I ever took. Overall I think my education would have been stronger by attending office hours.

I view LLMs in education similarly to office hours. Some people abuse it to get homework answers without grappling with the material, but the optimal amount is not zero.

LLM certainly not a replacement for a book, where you get someone’s extended personal approach to a topic, thoughtfully organized, reviewed and edited, often times actual courses taught based on it, with answers checked and errata available online.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#218

Post by therepanic »

eterm wrote: post #34
f311a wrote: post #21

What’s everyone’s opinion on learning new tech things in this day and age? My opinion swings between positive and depressing vision of the future. I still learn new stuff, but I’m afraid it won’t have any value in a year or so. For example, I’m pretty good at optimizing low level stuff, but right now you can just ask LLMs to do so and they are pretty good at it. They will profile the code and suggest reasonable optio…

They're amazing at it, provided you keep asking the right questions. Trust me when I say that in the hands of someone who doesn't have your experience, the LLMs would not be getting the results you get. You might think what you're doing is trivial, it may be sessions that flow roughly, "Instrument this, okay this part is slow, profile this part, OK read the profile output and suggest a better approach". But your expe…

So what should newcomers do who haven't yet gained enough expertise to ask LLMs the right questions?

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#219

Post by DrewADesign »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #197
SchemaLoad wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with the latest models today, the hallucination rate is absurdly high on anything deeper than surface level knowledge or something that can be directly scraped from reddit. And you notice when it's a topic you know well or something like software where you can immediately tell the options it's giving you don't exist on the page. Leading to the amusing statement "LLMs are bad at what I do but great at everything…

I've (elsewhere) written about this diminishing return effect on LLM utility in relation to increasing expertise. The question: what's the net positive gain of turning people who know nothing in a given field into sub-novices, while weighing actual experts down with work slop and marginal returns? And I wonder what the true cost is of arming so many novices with that level of dangerous knowledge.

The fact that some people get genuine value from LLMs when learning doesn’t contradict the fact that they’re Dunning-Krueger “expertise” generators. The fact that the person learning from them is in charge of ensuring they aren’t full of shit, which they frequently are, is an inescapable flaw in this process. I honestly think that reduces the value of these things to just above what you can find out with a search engine with most topics. Hey, great. An improvement is an improvement right? Is it an improvement worth trillions of dollars and screwing over writers and artists worldwide? Fuck no.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#220

Post by zahrevsky »

wxw wrote: post #31

> What you get is a beautiful animation that is 100% accurate and free of hallucinations. I'm not sure I follow how this is actually guaranteed? The fact-checking process mentioned just seems to involve asking AI to review its own work.

I don't do animations, but I have an answer. You research a topic well enough to be able to understand if the result is OK or not. Usually it means figuring out some sort of testing.

I'm researching causal inference right now, and my main goal was to make sure I understand how to test estimation on synthetic data.

Basically, it's the same way it works with people. If you delegate a task that you don't understand, and you can't have a credibility proof (i.e. doctors, lawyers), then you research a topic well enough to be able to (1) define the task and (2) verify the end result.

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