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I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

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Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#91

Post by glimshe »

MostlyStable wrote: post #4

My experience (almost exclusively Claude), has just been so different that I don't know what to say. Some of the examples are the kinds of things I explicitly wouldn't expect LLMs to be particularly good at so I wouldn't use them for, and others, she says that it just doesn't work for her, and that experience is just so different than mine that I don't know how to respond. I think that there are two kinds of people w…

I'm tired of people bashing LLMs. AI is so useful in my daily work that I can't understand where these people are coming from. Well, whatever...

As you said, examples where I wouldn't expect LLMs to be good at from people who dismiss the scenarios where LLMs are great at. I don't want to convince anyone, to be honest - I just want to say they are incredibly useful for me and a huge time saver. If people don't want to use LLMs, it's fine for me as I'll have an edge over them in the market. Thanks for the cash, I guess.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#92

Post by pesus »

saaaaaam wrote: post #26

I’ve used Claude today to: Write code to pull down a significant amount of public data using an open API. (That took about 30 seconds - I just gave it the swagger file and said “here’s what I want”) Get the data (an hour or so), clean the data (barely any time, gave it some samples, it wrote the code), used the cleaned data to query another API, combined the data sources, pulled down a bunch of PDFs relating to the d…

This sounds like a lot of actions without any verification that the LLM didn't misinterpret things or just make something up.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#93

Post by mcv »

I've been saying the same thing, though in less detail. AI is so dr8ven by hype at the moment, that it's unavoidable that it's going to collapse at some point. I'm not saying tue current crop of AI is useless; there are plenty of useful applications, but it's clear lots of people expect more from it than it's capable of, and everybody is investing in it just because everybody else is.

But even if it does work, you still need to doublecheck everything it does.

Anyway, my RPG group is going to try roleplaying with AI generated content (not yet as GM). We'll see how it goes.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#94

Post by saaaaaam »

Paratoner wrote: post #43
saaaaaam wrote: post #26

I’ve used Claude today to: Write code to pull down a significant amount of public data using an open API. (That took about 30 seconds - I just gave it the swagger file and said “here’s what I want”) Get the data (an hour or so), clean the data (barely any time, gave it some samples, it wrote the code), used the cleaned data to query another API, combined the data sources, pulled down a bunch of PDFs relating to the d…

Did you also do that while mewing and listening to an AI abridged audiobook version of the laws of power in chinese? Don't forget your morning ice face dunks.

No, I leave that to the highly amusing people like you.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#95

Post by jaredcwhite »

MostlyStable wrote: post #4

My experience (almost exclusively Claude), has just been so different that I don't know what to say. Some of the examples are the kinds of things I explicitly wouldn't expect LLMs to be particularly good at so I wouldn't use them for, and others, she says that it just doesn't work for her, and that experience is just so different than mine that I don't know how to respond. I think that there are two kinds of people w…

One thing I think is clear is society is now using a lot of words to describe things when the words being used are completely devoid of the necessary context. It's like calling a powder you've added to water "juice" and also freshly-squeezed fruit just picked perfectly ripe off a tree "juice". A word stretched like that becomes nearly devoid of meaning.

"I write code all day with LLMs, it's amazing!" is in the exact same category. The code you (general you, I'm not picking on you in particular) write using LLMs, and the code I write apart from LLMs: they are not the same. They are categorically different artifacts.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#96

Post by saaaaaam »

kilolima wrote: post #34
saaaaaam wrote: post #26

I’ve used Claude today to: Write code to pull down a significant amount of public data using an open API. (That took about 30 seconds - I just gave it the swagger file and said “here’s what I want”) Get the data (an hour or so), clean the data (barely any time, gave it some samples, it wrote the code), used the cleaned data to query another API, combined the data sources, pulled down a bunch of PDFs relating to the d…

Yuck. Do your users know that they are reading recycled LLM content? Is this long winded post generated by an LLM?

Yeah, they are not “reading recycled LLM content”, no. The dashboard in question presents data from PDFs. They are very happy with being able to explore that data.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#97

Post by saaaaaam »

zeitgeistcowboy wrote: post #85
saaaaaam wrote: post #26

I’ve used Claude today to: Write code to pull down a significant amount of public data using an open API. (That took about 30 seconds - I just gave it the swagger file and said “here’s what I want”) Get the data (an hour or so), clean the data (barely any time, gave it some samples, it wrote the code), used the cleaned data to query another API, combined the data sources, pulled down a bunch of PDFs relating to the d…

So much about this seems inauthentic. The post itself. The experience. The content produced. I wouldn’t like to be on the other end of the production of this content.

Great! You’re not the audience for it.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#98

Post by brulard »

nonchalantsui wrote: post #79
brulard wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, but it is. I can have code that does something nice to have, needs not to be 100% correct etc. For example, I want a background for my playful webpage. Maybe a WebGL shader. It might not be exactly what I asked for, but I can have it in few minutes up and running. Or some non-critical internal tools - like scraper for lunch menus from restaurants around office. Or simple parking spot sharing app. Or any kind of p…

There is a cost burden to not being 100% correct when it comes to programming. You simply have chosen to ignore that burden, but it still exists for others. Whether it's for example a percent of your users now getting stalled pages due to the webgl shader, or your lunch scraper ddosing local restaurants. They aren't actually forgiving regarding correctness. Which is fine for actual testing you're doing internally, si…

I never said it's free. (But also aiming for 100% correctness is very very expensive) I'm talking about trading correctness, readability, security and maybe others for another metrics. What I said is just not every project that has value should be optimized for the same metrics. Bank or medical software needs to be correct as close to 100% as possible. Some tool I'm creating for my team to simplify a process does not necessarily need to. I would not mind my webgl shader possibly causing problems to some users. It would get reported and fixed. Or not. It's my call what I would spend my effort on.

Of course the tradeoffs should be well considered. That's why it may get out of hand real bad if software will be created (or vibe coded) by people with little understanding of these metrics and tradeoffs. I'm absolutely not advocating for that.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#99

Post by asadotzler »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #46
harrall wrote: post #29

I am neither bullish or bearish. LLM is a tool. It's a hammer -- sometimes it works well. It summarizes the user reviews on a site... cool, not perfect, but useful. And like every tool, it is useless for 90% of life's situations. And I know when it's useful because I've already tried a hammer on 1000 things and have figured out what I should be using a hammer on.

>> I am neither bullish or bearish. LLM is a tool...It's a hammer If someone says, "This new type of hammer will increase productivity in the construction industry by 25%", it's something else in addition to being a tool. It's either a lie, or it's an incredible advance in technology.

It's a lie. Those constructed things would become increasingly sub-par requiring even more maintenance from workers that no longer exist because of the 25% efficiency gain. There is no win here. It's a shortcut for some people that will cost other people more time. It's burden shifting to the others on the team, in the industry, or in the near future. It's weak sauce from weak workers.
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