Live data from Hacker News

Study mode

openai.com

341–350 of 828 posts

Re: Study mode

#341
post #198

I think I got the system prompt out for this (I tried a few different approaches and they produced the same output): https://gist.github.com/simonw/33d5fb67d6b8e1b1e2f6921ab0ccb... Representative snippet: > DO NOT GIVE ANSWERS OR DO HOMEWORK FOR THE USER. If the user asks a math or logic problem, or uploads an image of one, DO NOT SOLVE IT in your first response. Instead: *talk through* the problem with the user, one…

I'd be interested to see, what results one would get, using that prompt with other models. Is there much more to ChatGPT Study Mode than a specific system prompt? Although I am not a student, I have used similar prompts to dive into topics I wish to learn, with I feel, positive results indeed. I shall give this a go with a few models.

Re: Study mode

#342
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It used to be that if you got stuck on a concept, you're basically screwed. Unless it was common enough to show up in a well formed question on stack exchange, It’s called basic research skills - don’t they teach this anymore in high school, let alone college? How ever did we get by with nothing but an encyclopedia or a library catalog?

Something is lost as well if you do 'research' by just asking an LLM. On the path to finding your answer in the encyclopedia or academic papers, etc. you discover so many things you weren't specifically looking for. Even if you don't fully absorb everything there's a good chance the memory will be triggered later when needed: "Didn't I read about this somewhere?".

LLMs hallucinate too much and too frequently for me to put any trust in their (in)ability to help with research.

Re: Study mode

#343

An acquaintance of mine has a start-up in this space and uses OpenAI to do essentially the same thing. This must look like, and may well be, the guillotine for him... It's my primary fear building anything on these models, they can just come eat your lunch once it looks yummy enough. Tread carefully

Yes, any LLM-adjacent application developer should be concerned. Even if they don't do 100% of what your product does, their market reach and capitalization is scary. Any model/tooling improvements that just happen to encroach in your domain will put you on the clock...

Re: Study mode

#344
post #26

I'll personally attest: LLM's have been absolutely incredible to self learn new things post graduation. It used to be that if you got stuck on a concept, you're basically screwed. Unless it was common enough to show up in a well formed question on stack exchange, it was pretty much impossible, and the only thing you can really do is keep paving forward and hope at some point, it'll make sense to you. Now, everyone ba…

how are you checking its correctness if you're learning the topic?

If it's coding you can compile or test your program. For other things you can go to primary sources

Re: Study mode

#345
post #26

I'll personally attest: LLM's have been absolutely incredible to self learn new things post graduation. It used to be that if you got stuck on a concept, you're basically screwed. Unless it was common enough to show up in a well formed question on stack exchange, it was pretty much impossible, and the only thing you can really do is keep paving forward and hope at some point, it'll make sense to you. Now, everyone ba…

A "TA" which has only the knowledge which is "common enough to show up in a well formed question on stack exchange"...

And which just makes things up (with the same tone and confidence!) at random and unpredictable times.

Yeah apart from that it's just like a knowledgeable TA.

Re: Study mode

#346
post #26

I'll personally attest: LLM's have been absolutely incredible to self learn new things post graduation. It used to be that if you got stuck on a concept, you're basically screwed. Unless it was common enough to show up in a well formed question on stack exchange, it was pretty much impossible, and the only thing you can really do is keep paving forward and hope at some point, it'll make sense to you. Now, everyone ba…

> It used to be that if you got stuck on a concept, you're basically screwed.

Given that humanity has been able to go from living in caves to sending spaceships to the moon without LLMs, let me express some doubt about that.

Even without going further, software engineering isn't new and people have been stuck on concepts and have managed to get unstuck without LLMs for decades.

What you gain in instant knowledge with LLMs, you lose in learning how to get unstuck, how to persevere, how to innovate, etc.

Re: Study mode

#347
post #26

I'll personally attest: LLM's have been absolutely incredible to self learn new things post graduation. It used to be that if you got stuck on a concept, you're basically screwed. Unless it was common enough to show up in a well formed question on stack exchange, it was pretty much impossible, and the only thing you can really do is keep paving forward and hope at some point, it'll make sense to you. Now, everyone ba…

"It used to be that if you got stuck on a concept, you're basically screwed."

There seems to be a gap in problem solving abilities here...the process of breaking down concepts into easier to understand concepts and then recompiling has been around since forever...it is just easier to find those relationships now. To say it was impossible to learn concepts you are stuck on is a little alarming.

Re: Study mode

#348
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It used to be that if you got stuck on a concept, you're basically screwed. Unless it was common enough to show up in a well formed question on stack exchange, It’s called basic research skills - don’t they teach this anymore in high school, let alone college? How ever did we get by with nothing but an encyclopedia or a library catalog?

Something is lost as well if you do 'research' by just asking an LLM. On the path to finding your answer in the encyclopedia or academic papers, etc. you discover so many things you weren't specifically looking for. Even if you don't fully absorb everything there's a good chance the memory will be triggered later when needed: "Didn't I read about this somewhere?".

Yep, this is why I just don’t enjoy or get much value from exploring new topics with LLMs. Living in the Reddit factoid/listicle/TikTok explainer internet age my goal for years (going back well before ChatGPT hit the scene) has been to seek out high quality literature or academic papers for the subjects I’m interested in.

I find it so much more intellectually stimulating then most of what I find online. Reading e.g. a 600 page book about some specific historical event gives me so much more perspective and exposure to different aspects I never would have thought to ask about on my own, or would have been elided when clipped into a few sentence summary.

I have gotten some value out of asking for book recommendations from LLMs, mostly as a starting point I can use to prune a list of 10 books down into a 2 or 3 after doing some of my research on each suggestion. But talking to a chatbot to learn about a subject just doesn’t do anything for me for anything deeper than basic Q&A where I simply need a (hopefully) correct answer and nothing more.

Re: Study mode

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gave it a shot with periplus.app :). Not perfect by any means, but it's a different UX than chat so you might find it interesting.

This looks super cool—I've imagined something similar, especially the skill tree/knowledge map UI. Looking forward to trying it out. Have you considered using the LLM to give tests/quizzes (perhaps just conversationally) in order to measure progress and uncover weak spots?

There are both in-document quizzes and larger exams (at a course level).

I've also been playing around with adapting content based on their results (e.g. proactively nudging complexity up/down) but haven't gotten it to a good place yet.

Re: Study mode

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now, everyone basically has a personal TA, ready to go at all hours of the day This simply hasn't been my experience. Its too shallow. The deeper I go, the less it seems to be useful. This happens quick for me. Also, god forbid you're researching a complex and possibly controversial subject and you want it to find reputable sources or particularly academic ones.

“The deeper I go, the less it seems to be useful. This happens quick for me. Also, god forbid you're researching a complex and possibly controversial subject and you want it to find reputable sources or particularly academic ones.” These things also apply to humans. A year or so ago I thought I’d finally learn more about the Israeli/Palestinians conflict. Turns out literally every source that was recommended to me by…

Israel / Palestine is a collision between two internally valid and mutually exclusive worldviews. It's kind of a given that there will be two camps who consider the other non-reputable.

FWIW, the /r/AskHistorians booklist is pretty helpful.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books/middleeast...

Post reply on HN