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I'd rather read the prompt

claytonwramsey.com

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Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#141

Post by musicale »

jsheard wrote: post #74

I'm far from the first to make this observation but LLMs are like anti-compression algorithms when used like that, a simple idea gets expanded into a bloated mess by an LLM, then sent to someone else who runs it through another LLM to summarize it back to something approximating the original prompt. Nobody benefits aside from Sam Altman and co, who get to pocket a cool $0.000000001 for enabling this pointless exercis…

> LLMs are like anti-compression algorithms when used like that, a simple idea gets expanded into a bloated mess by an LLM,

I think that's the answer:

LLMs are primarily useful for data and text translation and reduction, not for expansion.

An exception is repetitive or boilerplate text or code where a verbose format is required to express a small amount of information.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#142

Post by [deleted] »

afavour wrote: post #75

ChatGPT English is set to be the a ubiquitous, remarkably inefficient data transmission format that sits on top of email. I wish to communicate four points of information to you. I’ll ask ChatGPT to fluff those up into multiple paragraphs of text for me to email. You will receive that email, recognize its length and immediately copy and paste it into ChatGPT, asking it to summarize the points provided. Somewhere off…

[deleted]

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#143

Post by FridgeSeal »

generativenoise wrote: post #133
throwawaysleep wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what you are looking for. I’ve turned half baked ideas into white papers for plenty of praise. I’ve used them to make my Jira tickets seem complicated and complete. I’ve used them to get praised for writing comprehensive documentation. Part of my performance review is indirectly using bloat to seem sophisticated and thorough.

Would be nice to fix the performance reviews so we don't end up in a arms race of creating bloat until it becomes so unproductive it kills the host. Over-fitting proxy measures is one of the scourges of modernity. The only silver lining is if it becomes so wide spread and easy it loses the value of seeming sophisticated and thorough.

> creating bloat until it becomes so unproductive it kills the host

Maybe we should let/encourage this to happen. Maybe letting bloated zombie-like organisations bloat themselves to death would thin the herd somewhat, to make space for organisations that are less “broken”.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#144

Post by necovek »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #125
jsheard wrote: post #74

I'm far from the first to make this observation but LLMs are like anti-compression algorithms when used like that, a simple idea gets expanded into a bloated mess by an LLM, then sent to someone else who runs it through another LLM to summarize it back to something approximating the original prompt. Nobody benefits aside from Sam Altman and co, who get to pocket a cool $0.000000001 for enabling this pointless exercis…

Depends on what you are looking for. I’ve turned half baked ideas into white papers for plenty of praise. I’ve used them to make my Jira tickets seem complicated and complete. I’ve used them to get praised for writing comprehensive documentation. Part of my performance review is indirectly using bloat to seem sophisticated and thorough.

I fully believe you and I am saddened by the reality of your situation.

At the same time, I strive really hard to influence the environment I am in so it does not value content bloat as a unit of productivity, so hopefully there are at least some places where people can have their sanity back!

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#145

Post by sieve »

Depends on the situation.

I like reading and writing stories. Last month, I compared the ability of various LLMs to rewrite Saki's "The Open Window" from a given prompt.[1] The prompt follows the 13-odd attempts. I am pretty sure in this case that you'd rather read the story than the prompt.

I find the disdain that some people have for LLMs and diffusion models to be rather bizarre. They are tools that are democratizing some trades.

Very few people (basically, those who can afford it) write to "communicate original thoughts." They write because they want to get paid. People who can afford to concentrate on the "art" of writing/painting are pretty rare. Most people are doing these things as a profession with deadlines to meet. Unlike you are GRRM, you cannot spend decades on a single book waiting for inspiration to strike. You need to work on it. Also, authors writing crap/gold at a per-page rate is hardly something new.

LLMs are probably the most interesting thing I have encountered since I did the computer. These puritans should get off of their high horse (or down from their ivory tower) and join the plebes.

[1] Variations on a Theme of Saki (https://gist.github.com/s-i-e-v-e/b4d696bfb08488aeb893cce3a4...)

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#146

Post by [deleted] »

iddan wrote: post #80
afavour wrote: post #75

ChatGPT English is set to be the a ubiquitous, remarkably inefficient data transmission format that sits on top of email. I wish to communicate four points of information to you. I’ll ask ChatGPT to fluff those up into multiple paragraphs of text for me to email. You will receive that email, recognize its length and immediately copy and paste it into ChatGPT, asking it to summarize the points provided. Somewhere off…

Jokes aside, I’m building a product for this for sales. If this is relevant to you: https://closer.so

[deleted]

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#147

Post by ilovegold »

tomjen3 wrote: post #34

I wish the author had state out right that they were not using LLMs much, since their opinion on them and their output has no value (its a new technology, and different enough that you do have to spend some time with them in order to be able to find out what value they have for your particluar work[0]. The is especially the case when you are about to complain about style, since that can easily be adjusted, by simply…

[flagged]

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#148

Post by palata »

laurentlb wrote: post #127

There are many ways to use LLMs. The issue, IMO, is that some people throw in a one-shot, short prompt, and get a generic, boring output. "Garbage in, generic out." Here's how I actually use LLMs: - To dump my thoughts and get help organizing them. - To get feedback on phrasing and transitions (I'm not a native speaker). - To improve tone, style (while trying to keep it personal!), or just to simplify messy sentences…

> would you really rather read all the prompts and drafts instead of the final version?

I think you missed the point of the article. They did not mean it literally: it's a way to say that they are interested in what you have to say.

And that is the point that is extremely difficult to make students understand. When a teacher asks a student to write about a historical event, it's not just some kind of ceremony on the way to a degree. The end goal is to make the student improve in a number of skills: gathering information, making sense of it, absorbing it, being critical about what they read, eventually building an opinion about it.

When you say "I use an LLM to dump my thoughts and get help organising them", what you say is that you are not interested in improving your ability to actually absorb information. To me, it says that you are not interested in becoming interesting. I would think that it is a maturity issue: some day you will understand.

And that's what the article says: I am interested in hearing what you have to say about a topic that you care about. I am not interested into anything you can do to pretend that you care or know about it. If you can't organise your thoughts yourself, I don't believe that you have reached a point where you are interesting. Not that you will never get there; it just takes practice. But if you don't practice (and use LLMs instead), my concern is that you will never become interesting. This time is wasted, I don't want to read what your LLM generated from that stuff you didn't care to absorb in the first place.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#149

Post by nathants »

necovek wrote: post #137
nathants wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are only two options: - have more information - have less information more is better. you can scrub video with your finger on an iphone. serious review is always high effort, video changes nothing.

Not really: I love reading fiction where I can imagine characters the way I want to based on their written depictions. When I see a book cover replaced with a recent movie adaptation actor, it usually reduces the creative space for the reader instead of enlarging it. Video in itself is not more information by definition. Just look at those automatically generated videos when you try finding a review on an unusual pro…

are you trying to evaluate the author for some certification or test? this is contextual to evaluation.

books are great.

hundreds of hours of video of the author writing that book, is strictly more information.

Re: I'd rather read the prompt

#150

Post by tptacek »

necovek wrote: post #135
tptacek wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who have you asked? What has been your experience observing professionals using LLMs?

Is "what has been my experience" not implied in what I am still waiting for — "someone using an LLM to produce high quality code in the field of their expertise in less time than without an LLM"? So, observing a couple of my colleagues (I am an engineering manager, but have switched back and forth between management and IC roles for the last ~20 years), I've seen them either produce crap, or spend so much time tuning…

LLMs don't make bad programmers into good programmers. If your team is comfortable merging "crap", you have deeper problems.
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