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LLMs reward expertise

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Re: LLMs reward expertise

#121

Post by jonahx »

bumblehean wrote: post #68
petcat wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You could read some general reference/guide/tutorial documentation on CSS, and then probably solve your problem Hours + Hours of reading and a lot of trial-and-error. The loop was so long and sooo slow. Now it's instant. As if your very first Google search just solved the problem for you immediately.

>Hours + Hours of reading and a lot of trial-and-error. The loop was so long and sooo slow. But that's how you learn...

There was some learning, but also a lot of waste. As a self-learner, I've never been able to learn so fast as I can now with an LLM to instantly answer my specific questions, and incrementally correct and grow my mental model. And while with some subjects you need to worry about accuracy, LLMs are generally very good with programming questions, and (for most types of questions) you can verify their claims yourself.

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#122

Post by hgoel »

Jtarii wrote: post #118
hgoel wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a world where there are endless things to do and only limited time to get them done, not every issue needs to be a learning matter.

If you are making something that you care about you should probably understand how it works. I didn't know this was such a hot take.

So, since you care so much and caring requires knowing everything about everything that even remotely intersects with your project, as (presumably) a software developer presumably you understand in detail how every bit of the CPUs you're targeting, plus the lithography, chemistry, and how solid state physics, and the underlying quantum mechanics work?

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#123

Post by pixl97 »

colechristensen wrote: post #30
fragmede wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was one math proof that was AI generated going around Twitter and the chat transcript to generate it was basically the human prompting "keep going" until it solved it. Tao's chat was fascinating because the questions he was asking belied expert knowledge of the subject that only a handful of people could have asked.

Yes, we're in the low hanging fruit stage where folks can just say "here's the problem" and "keep going" until a result is found and it will work sometimes. The low hanging fruit will run short. Ultimately mathematics is a field of subjective selections of problems and proofs as beautiful and interesting. Machines absolutely will struggle with what to study, what theorems are desirable, and when do be done with a pro…

While they may struggle on what to study, we'll be able to spin up millions of them.

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#124

Post by _carbyau_ »

petcat wrote: post #74
bumblehean wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Hours + Hours of reading and a lot of trial-and-error. The loop was so long and sooo slow. But that's how you learn...

We don't need to learn CSS anymore. Just like we don't need to learn ASM since GCC does a great job generating it from higher-level code.

I just want to point out the exception - the person who the AI learns from.

Someone has to know it. And to advance it to the next level requires domain level expertise. Or are we allowing LLM's to determine the next CSS snapshot/version/level/whatever?

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#125

Post by roncesvalles »

That's why when people like Pieter Levels tweet "I cancelled and then vibecoded 100% of my SaaS subscriptions", you need to take it with a huge grain of salt because you're not Pieter Levels, you cannot vibe code your SaaS subscriptions.

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#126

Post by dbalatero »

> Of course both are useful, but I’d rather have familiarity with the codebase than a deep general understanding of software systems.

In my experience, getting that familiarity with a particular codebase in a way that isn't surface-level has always been a hands-on process. E.g. just because I know many general things about software, I need to know the particulars of the current codebase I'm in to know what is reasonable to actually apply to it.

This is a chicken and egg problem I find hard to resolve with LLMs. If we're pushed to delegate most work to them, how do you build that expertise? Sure you can ask questions about the codebase, but IMHO that falls under surface-level information, and the devil is often in the deeper details. Hmm.

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#127

Post by aanet »

I'm surprised nobody mentioned (including the author) the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect [1]... Just substitute "LLM" for "journalist" and there you have it.

And to be honest, I have seen it, as I'm sure (almost) everyone has, who has demonstrated experience/expertise in their own fields, and correct the LLM's responses one time or another...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#%22Gell-Mann_...

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#128

Post by its-summertime »

postalcoder wrote: post #4

Not sure I agree with this. The math guy at anthropic's prompts are essentially: "suppose you’ve gotta resolve the $CONJECTURE, like absolutely have to, everything depends on it. think really hard, and try to come up with a bunch of ideas to try. but remember to trust yourself and not necessarily in conventional wisdom!!" https://claude.ai/share/25740bd5-aa97-4bd7-bf58-c4df3793fda7 https://xcancel.com/__alpoge__/stat…

Who's end state took / is going to take more tokens / money, however?

"LLMs reward expertise" is the title, not that "LLMs only make things possible for those with expertise"

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#130

Post by dbalatero »

hgoel wrote: post #122
Jtarii wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are making something that you care about you should probably understand how it works. I didn't know this was such a hot take.

So, since you care so much and caring requires knowing everything about everything that even remotely intersects with your project, as (presumably) a software developer presumably you understand in detail how every bit of the CPUs you're targeting, plus the lithography, chemistry, and how solid state physics, and the underlying quantum mechanics work?

You seem to be massively exaggerating here for effect.

I think the main point is, if you're building frontend web apps, you should probably know how HTML, CSS, and JavaScript interact to some decently high level. Can you look stuff up on the margins via AI, or StackOverflow, or whatever? Sure.

If you're building , you should probably know the core tools and concepts at the appropriate level to build them.

No we do not need to know every aspect of CPU branch prediction and whatnot to make a webpage.

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