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Terence Tao on O1

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Re: Terence Tao on O1

#121
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Much Much more productive world by just knuckling down and learning how to do the work. The fact everyone that say they've become more productive with LLMs won't say how exactly. I can talk about how VIM have make it more enjoyable to edit code (keybinding and motions), how Emacs is a good environment around text tooling (lisp machine), how I use technical books to further my learning (so many great books out here)…

Ever seen someone try and search something on Google and they are just AWFUL at it? They can never find what they're looking for and then you try and can pull it up in a single search? That's what it is like watching some people try to use LLM's. Learning how to prompt an LLM is as much a learned skill as much as learning how to phrase internet searches is a learned skill. And as much as people decried that "searchin…

I'm not arguing that you can't get result with LLMs, I'm just asking is it worth the actual effort especially when there's better way to get that result you're seeking (or if the result is really something that you want).

An LLM is a word (token?) generator which can be amazingly consistent according to its model. But rarely is my end goal to generate text. It's either to do something, to understand something, or to communicate. For the first, there are guides (books, manuals, ...), for the second, there are explanations (again books, manuals,...), and the third is just using language to communicate what's on my mind.

That's the same thing with search engines. I use them to look for something. What I need first is a description of that something, not how to do the "looking for". Then once you know what you want to find, it's easier to use the tool to find it.

If your end goal can be achieved with LLMs, be my guest to use them. But, I'm wary of people taking them at face value and then pushing the workload unto everyone else (like developers using electron).

Re: Terence Tao on O1

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I entirely agree about their utility. HN, and the internet in general, have become just an ocean of reactionary sandbagging and blather about how "useless" LLMs are. Meanwhile, in the real world, I've found that I haven't written a line of code in weeks. Just paragraphs of text that specify what I want and then guidance through and around pitfalls in a simple iterative loop of useful working code. It's entirely a lea…

> Much Much more productive world by just knuckling down and learning how to do the work. The fact everyone that say they've become more productive with LLMs won't say how exactly. I can talk about how VIM have make it more enjoyable to edit code (keybinding and motions), how Emacs is a good environment around text tooling (lisp machine), how I use technical books to further my learning (so many great books out here)…

Here's one from simonw

https://gist.github.com/simonw/97e29b86540fcc627da4984daf5b7...

There are more to be found on his blog on the ai-assisted-programming tag. https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai-assisted-programming/

Re: Terence Tao on O1

#125
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HN, and the internet in general, have become just an ocean of reactionary sandbagging and blather about how "useless" LLMs are. This is cult like behaviour that reminds me so much of the crypto space. I don't understand why people are not allowed to be critical of a technology or not find it useful. And if they are they are somehow ignorant, over-reacting or deficient in some way.

Also, I'm deeply skeptical of crypto too due to its present scamminess, but I am keeping an open mind that there is a future in which crypto -- once it gets over this phase of get-rich-quick schemers -- will be seen as just another asset class. I read somewhere that historically bonds in their early days were also associated with scamminess but today they're just a vanilla asset.

I'm honestly more optimistic about cryptocurrency as a mechanism of exchange rather than an asset. As a mechanism of exchange, cryptocurrency has some actually novel properties like distributed consensus that could be useful in certain cases. But an asset class which has zero backing value seems unworkable except for wild speculation and scams. Unfortunately the incentives around most cryptocurrencies (and maybe fundamental to cryptocurrency as an idea) greatly emphasize the asset aspects, and it's getting to be long enough since it became a thing that I'm starting to become skeptical cryptocurrency will be a real medium of exchange outside of illegal activities and maybe a few other niche cases.

Re: Terence Tao on O1

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I entirely agree about their utility. HN, and the internet in general, have become just an ocean of reactionary sandbagging and blather about how "useless" LLMs are. Meanwhile, in the real world, I've found that I haven't written a line of code in weeks. Just paragraphs of text that specify what I want and then guidance through and around pitfalls in a simple iterative loop of useful working code. It's entirely a lea…

> I've found that I haven't written a line of code in weeks Which is great until your next job interview. Really, it's tempting in the short run but I made a conscious decision to do certain tasks manually only so that I don't lose my basic skills.

I sometimes get the idea from statements like this - and HN's focus on interviewing in general - that people are switching jobs a dozen times a year or something. How often are most people switching jobs? I've had 5 jobs in the last 20 years.
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