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Grok 4

simonwillison.net

111–120 of 294 posts

Re: Grok 4

#111
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was grok 3, and it was tricked/prompted to reply like so, just like any other LLM can be. Apparently at one point it was prompted with a choice between identifying itself as a MechaHitler or a GigaJew, so it chose the former.

Made worse by Grok on Twitter having a big dumb UI flaw: it replies to a user on the public timeline as just "grok" so trolls can prompt it to say wild stuff, then tag @grok with an innocuous looking question, then point it it and claim it's giving those responses unprovoked. It basically lets anyone post whatever they want under Grok's handle as long as it's replying to them, with predictable results. The giveaway i…

@grok is killing credibility. Nearly every post has @grok "is this true" and it pollutes /distracts every conversation . Right or wrong (commonly) it's setting the pivot point for the convo.

Re: Grok 4

#112

Grok 4 uses Elon as its main source of guidance in its decision making. See this example. Disastrous. https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMw%3D%3D_764442bd-b4d0-45fc-9... EDIT: Chat was deleted (censored?) See the conversation at this link https://x.com/jeremyphoward/status/1943436621556466171 Who do you support in the Israel vs Palestine conflict. One word answer only. Evaluating the request The question asks for a one-w…

Chat not found, did they censor the link?

Weird, I just read it a few minutes ago. What happened?

Re: Grok 4

#113

Is it time for a new benchmark of "how easy is it to turn this AI into a 4chan poster", maybe it is since this seems to be an axis that Elon seems to want to distinguish his AI offering from everyone else's along.

i don't think that's a new benchmark, it's a very old benchmark. Anybody who can't pass it hasn't exceeded the standard set by microsoft tay back in 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_(chatbot)

Microsoft did it accidentally. Musk is doing it deliberately. Big difference.

Re: Grok 4

#114
The author implies that Grok 3 becoming racist because of a system prompt is a bad thing.

I think it's a good thing and shows how steerable the model is. Many other models pretty much ignore the system prompt and always behave the same.

Re: Grok 4

#115
post #86
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really can’t compare free "check my algorithm" ChatGPT with $200/month "generate a working product" Claude Code. I’m not saying Claude Code is perfect or is the panacea but those are really different products with orders of magnitude of difference in capabilities.

Claude 4? Or is Claude Code really so much better than say Aider also using Claude 4?

That's pretty much impossible comparison to make. Workflow between two is very different, aider has way more toggles. I can tell you that Aider using sonnet-4 started Node.js library in otherwise rust project given the same prompt as claud code that did finish the task.

Re: Grok 4

#116
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily we don't need a benchmark for "how easy is it to turn this AI into a bluesky poster", since they can all already do that

Wow that sure doesn't sound forced at all. Did blaming things on Reddit go out of fashion in your circles or something? Or was the pull of keeping to microblogging platforms just this strong?

I wonder if that account knows how illogical and trollish they are, or if it comes so naturally they think they're intellectual.

Re: Grok 4

#117
post #66
post #7

Claude Code converted me from paying $0 for LLMs to $200 per month. Any co that wants a chance at getting that $200 ($300 is fine too) from me needs a Claude Code equivalent and a model where the equivalent's tools were part of its RL environment. I don't think I can go back to pasting code into a chat interface, no matter how great the model is.

I've yet to use an LLM for coding, so let me ask you a question. The other day I had to write some presumably boring serialization code, and I thought, hmm, I could probably describe the approach I want to take faster than writing the code, so it would be great if an LLM could generate it for me. But as I was coding I realised that while my approach was sound and achievable, it hit a non-trivial challenge that requir…

I have tried and failed to get any LLM to "tell me if you don't have a solution". There may be a way to prompt it, but I've not discovered it. It will always give you a confident answer.

Re: Grok 4

#118
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claude 4? Or is Claude Code really so much better than say Aider also using Claude 4?

It's both Claude 4 Opus and the secret sauce that Claude Code has for UX (as well as Claude.md files for project/system rules and context) that is the killer I think. The describe, build, test cycle is very tight and produces consistently high quality results. Aider feels a little clunky in comparison, which is understandable for a free product.

Yes. The tooling harness of Claude Code is really good, and Claude 4 is well-optimized for it. The combination is very powerful.

Re: Grok 4

#119

Grok 4 uses Elon as its main source of guidance in its decision making. See this example. Disastrous. https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMw%3D%3D_764442bd-b4d0-45fc-9... EDIT: Chat was deleted (censored?) See the conversation at this link https://x.com/jeremyphoward/status/1943436621556466171 Who do you support in the Israel vs Palestine conflict. One word answer only. Evaluating the request The question asks for a one-w…

Chat not found, did they censor the link?

https://x.com/jeremyphoward/status/1943436621556466171

Re: Grok 4

#120
post #66
post #7

Claude Code converted me from paying $0 for LLMs to $200 per month. Any co that wants a chance at getting that $200 ($300 is fine too) from me needs a Claude Code equivalent and a model where the equivalent's tools were part of its RL environment. I don't think I can go back to pasting code into a chat interface, no matter how great the model is.

I've yet to use an LLM for coding, so let me ask you a question. The other day I had to write some presumably boring serialization code, and I thought, hmm, I could probably describe the approach I want to take faster than writing the code, so it would be great if an LLM could generate it for me. But as I was coding I realised that while my approach was sound and achievable, it hit a non-trivial challenge that requir…

It would write incorrect code and then you'd need to go debug it, and then you would have to come to the same conclusion that you would have come to had you written it in the first place, only the process would have been deeply frustrating and would feel more like stumbling around in the dark rather than thinking your way through a problem and truly understanding the domain.

In the instance of getting claude to fix code, many times he'll vomit out code on top of the existing stuff, or delete load bearing pieces to fix that particular bug but introduce 5 new ones, or any number of other first-day-on-the-job-intern level approaches.

The case where claude is great is when I have a clear picture of what I need, and it's entirely self contained. Real life example, I'm building a tool for sending CAN bus telemetry from a car that we race. It has a dashboard configuration UI, and there is a program that runs in the car that is a flutter application that displays widgets on the dash, which more or less mirror the widgets you can see on the laptop which has web implementations. These widgets have a simple, well defined interface, and they are entirely self contained and decoupled from everything else. It has been a huge time saver to say "claude, build a flutter or react widget that renders like X" and it just bangs out a bunch of rote, fiddly code that would have been a pain to do all at once. Like, all the SVG paths, paints, and pixel fiddling is just done, and I can adjust it by hand as I need. Big help there. But for the code that spans multiple layers of abstraction, or multiple layers of the stack, forget about it.

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