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Thoughts on thinking

dcurt.is

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Re: Thoughts on thinking

#121

Post by jstummbillig »

ay wrote: post #115

Very strange. Either the author uses some magic AI, or I am holding it wrong. I used LLMs since a couple of years, as a nice tool. Besides that: I have tried using LLMs to create cartoon pictures. The first impression is “wow”; but after a bunch of pictures you see the evidently repetitive “style”. Using LLMs to write poetry results is also quite cool at first, but after a few iterations you see the evidently repetit…

Maybe you are not that great at using the most current LLMs or you don't want to be? I find that increasingly to be the most likely answer, whenever somebody makes sweeping claims about the impotence of LLMs.

I get more use out of them every single day and certainly with every model release (mostly for generating absolutely not trivial code) and it's not subtle.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#122

Post by azinman2 »

johnisgood wrote: post #119
don_neufeld wrote: post #3

Completely agree. From all of my observations, the impact of LLMs on human thought quality appears largely corrosive. I’m very glad my kid’s school has hardcore banned them. In some class they only allow students to turn in work that was done in class, under the direct observation of the teacher. There has also been a significant increase in “on paper” work vs work done on computer. Lest you wonder “what does this gu…

You can learn a lot from LLMs though, same with, say, Wikipedia. You need curiosity. You need the desire to learn. If you do not have it, then of course you will get nowhere, LLMs or no LLMs.

Never underestimate laziness, or willingness to take something 80% as good for 1% of the work.

So most are not curious. So what do you do for them?

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#123

Post by snackernews »

johnisgood wrote: post #119
don_neufeld wrote: post #3

Completely agree. From all of my observations, the impact of LLMs on human thought quality appears largely corrosive. I’m very glad my kid’s school has hardcore banned them. In some class they only allow students to turn in work that was done in class, under the direct observation of the teacher. There has also been a significant increase in “on paper” work vs work done on computer. Lest you wonder “what does this gu…

You can learn a lot from LLMs though, same with, say, Wikipedia. You need curiosity. You need the desire to learn. If you do not have it, then of course you will get nowhere, LLMs or no LLMs.

Can you learn a lot? Or do you get instant answers to every question without learning anything, as OP suggests?

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#124

Post by deepsun »

> instantly get a fully reasoned, researched, and completed thought

That's not my experience though. I tried several models, but usually get a confident half-baked hallucination, and tweaking my prompt takes more time than finding the information myself.

My requests are typically programming tho.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#125

Post by qudat »

Man people are using LLMs much differently from myself. I use it as an answer engine and that’s about where I stop using it. It’s a great tool for research and quick answers but I haven’t found it great for much else.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#126

Post by j7ake »

qudat wrote: post #125

Man people are using LLMs much differently from myself. I use it as an answer engine and that’s about where I stop using it. It’s a great tool for research and quick answers but I haven’t found it great for much else.

It’s a faster Google search

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#127

Post by johnisgood »

snackernews wrote: post #123
johnisgood wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can learn a lot from LLMs though, same with, say, Wikipedia. You need curiosity. You need the desire to learn. If you do not have it, then of course you will get nowhere, LLMs or no LLMs.

Can you learn a lot? Or do you get instant answers to every question without learning anything, as OP suggests?

You can learn a lot, if you want to. I can ask it a question with regarding to pharmacodynamics of some medication, and I can ask more and more questions, and learn. Similarly, I could pick up a book on pharmacology, but LLMs can definitely make learning easier.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#129

Post by lcsiterrate »

I wonder if there is any like the cs50.ai for other fields, which acts as a guide by not instantly giving any answer. The one I experiment to have like this experience is by using custom instructions (most of LLMs have this in the settings) wherein I set it to Socratic mode so the LLM will spit out questions to stir ideas in my head.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#130

Post by johnisgood »

azinman2 wrote: post #122
johnisgood wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can learn a lot from LLMs though, same with, say, Wikipedia. You need curiosity. You need the desire to learn. If you do not have it, then of course you will get nowhere, LLMs or no LLMs.

Never underestimate laziness, or willingness to take something 80% as good for 1% of the work. So most are not curious. So what do you do for them?

You have to somehow figure out the root cause of the laziness, or if it really is laziness, and not something else, e.g. a mental health issue.

Plus, many kids fail school not because of laziness, but because of their toxic environment.

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