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LLMs are steroids for your Dunning-Kruger

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Re: LLMs are steroids for your Dunning-Kruger

#21

Post by Insanity »

deadbabe wrote: post #9
sho_hn wrote: post #4

I'm not sure this is something I really worry about. Whenever I use an LLM I feel dumber, not smarter; there's a sensation of relying on a crutch instead of having done the due diligence of learning something myself. I'm less confident in the knowledge and less likely to present it as such. Is anyone really cocksure on the basis of LLM received knowledge? > As I ChatGPT user I notice that I’m often left with a sense…

If you feel dumber, it’s because you’re using the LLM to do raw work instead of using it for research. It should be a google/stackoverflow replacement, not a really powerful intellisense. You should feel no dumber than using google to investigate questions.

I don't think this is entirely accurate. If you look at this: https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/your-brain-on-chatgpt..., it shows that search engines do engage your brain _more_ than LLM usage. So you'll remember more through search engine use (and crawling the web 'manually') than by just prompting a chatbot.

Re: LLMs are steroids for your Dunning-Kruger

#23

Post by aabhay »

Insanity wrote: post #11
sho_hn wrote: post #4

I'm not sure this is something I really worry about. Whenever I use an LLM I feel dumber, not smarter; there's a sensation of relying on a crutch instead of having done the due diligence of learning something myself. I'm less confident in the knowledge and less likely to present it as such. Is anyone really cocksure on the basis of LLM received knowledge? > As I ChatGPT user I notice that I’m often left with a sense…

I remember back when I was in secondary school, something commonly heard was "Don't just trust wikipedia, check it's resources, because it's crowdsourced and can be wrong". Now, almost 2 decades later, I rarely hear this stance and I see people relying on wikipedia as an authoritative source of truth. i.e, linking to wikipedia instead of the underlying sources. In the same sense, I can see that "Don't trust LLMs" wil…

There’s also the fact that both Wikipedia and LLMs are non-stationary. The quality of wikipedia has grown immensely since its inception and LLMs will get more accurate (if not explicitly “smarter”)

Re: LLMs are steroids for your Dunning-Kruger

#24

Post by sho_hn »

Insanity wrote: post #11
sho_hn wrote: post #4

I'm not sure this is something I really worry about. Whenever I use an LLM I feel dumber, not smarter; there's a sensation of relying on a crutch instead of having done the due diligence of learning something myself. I'm less confident in the knowledge and less likely to present it as such. Is anyone really cocksure on the basis of LLM received knowledge? > As I ChatGPT user I notice that I’m often left with a sense…

I remember back when I was in secondary school, something commonly heard was "Don't just trust wikipedia, check it's resources, because it's crowdsourced and can be wrong". Now, almost 2 decades later, I rarely hear this stance and I see people relying on wikipedia as an authoritative source of truth. i.e, linking to wikipedia instead of the underlying sources. In the same sense, I can see that "Don't trust LLMs" wil…

I don't think the cases are really the same. With Wikipedia people have learned to trust that the probability of the information being at least reasonably good is pretty high because there's an editing crucible around it and the ability to correct misinformation surgically. No one can hotpatch a LLM in 5mins.

Re: LLMs are steroids for your Dunning-Kruger

#25

Post by lukan »

sho_hn wrote: post #4

I'm not sure this is something I really worry about. Whenever I use an LLM I feel dumber, not smarter; there's a sensation of relying on a crutch instead of having done the due diligence of learning something myself. I'm less confident in the knowledge and less likely to present it as such. Is anyone really cocksure on the basis of LLM received knowledge? > As I ChatGPT user I notice that I’m often left with a sense…

Nah, I feel smart to use it in a smart way to get stuff done faster than before.

Re: LLMs are steroids for your Dunning-Kruger

#26

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

gopheryourshelf wrote: post #6

>“the problem with the world is that the stupid are cocksure, while the intelligent are full of doubt.” Is it me or does everyone find that dumb people seem to use this statement more than ever?

Ugh. You can be cocksure of your doubts. It's still confidence, duh.

Re: LLMs are steroids for your Dunning-Kruger

#27

Post by roywiggins »

lukev wrote: post #10

I very much agree. I've been telling folks in trainings that I do that the term "artificial intelligence" is a cognitohazard, in that it pre-consciously steers you to conceptualize a LLM as an entity . LLMs are cool and useful technology, but if you approach them with the attitude you're talking with an other , you are leaving yourself vulnerable to all sorts of cognitive distortions.

It certainly isn't helped by the RLHF and chat interface encouraging this. LLM providers have every incentive to make their users engage it like an other. It was much harder to accidentally do when it was just a completion UI and not designed to roleplay as a person.

Re: LLMs are steroids for your Dunning-Kruger

#28

Post by everdrive »

sho_hn wrote: post #4

I'm not sure this is something I really worry about. Whenever I use an LLM I feel dumber, not smarter; there's a sensation of relying on a crutch instead of having done the due diligence of learning something myself. I'm less confident in the knowledge and less likely to present it as such. Is anyone really cocksure on the basis of LLM received knowledge? > As I ChatGPT user I notice that I’m often left with a sense…

This captures my experience quite well. I can "get a lot more done," but it's not really me doing the things, and I feel like a bit of a fraud. And as the workday and the workweek roll on, I find myself needing to force myself to look things up and experiment rather than just asking the LLM. It's quite clear that for most people LLMs will make the more dependent. People with better discipline I think will really benefit in big ways, and you'll see this become a new luxury belief; the disciplined geniuses around us will genuinely be perplexed why people are saying that LLMs have made them less capable, much in the same way they wonder why people can't just limit their drug use recreationally.

Re: LLMs are steroids for your Dunning-Kruger

#29

Post by giraffe_lady »

kraftman wrote: post #20

I feel like when I talk to someone and they tell me a fact, that fact goes into a kind of holding space, where I apply a filter of 'who is this person that is telling me this thing to know what the thing they are telling me is'. There's how well I know them, there's the other beleifs I know they have, there's their professional experience and their personal experience. That fact then gets marked as 'probably a true f…

The important part of this is the "I feel like" bit. There's a fair but growing bit of research that the "fact" is more durable in your memory than the context, and over time, across a lot of information, you will lose some of the mappings and integrate things you "know" to be false into model of the world.

This more closely fits our models of cognition anyway. There is nothing really very like a filter in the human mind, though there are things that feel like them.

Re: LLMs are steroids for your Dunning-Kruger

#30

Post by tayo42 »

Insanity wrote: post #11
sho_hn wrote: post #4

I'm not sure this is something I really worry about. Whenever I use an LLM I feel dumber, not smarter; there's a sensation of relying on a crutch instead of having done the due diligence of learning something myself. I'm less confident in the knowledge and less likely to present it as such. Is anyone really cocksure on the basis of LLM received knowledge? > As I ChatGPT user I notice that I’m often left with a sense…

I remember back when I was in secondary school, something commonly heard was "Don't just trust wikipedia, check it's resources, because it's crowdsourced and can be wrong". Now, almost 2 decades later, I rarely hear this stance and I see people relying on wikipedia as an authoritative source of truth. i.e, linking to wikipedia instead of the underlying sources. In the same sense, I can see that "Don't trust LLMs" wil…

Wikipedia is usually close enough and most users don't require perfection for their "facts"

Ive noticed things like gemini summaries on Google searches are also generally close enough.

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