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Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

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Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#11

Post by y42 »

Depends on your goals. :)

If you're good at what you're doing right now and you enjoy it — why change? Some might argue that AI will eventually take your job, but I strongly doubt that.

If you're looking for something new because you are bored, go for it. I tried to wrap my head around the basics of LLMs and how they work under the hood. It’s not that complicated — I managed to understand it, wrote about it, shared it with others, and felt ready to go further in that direction. But the field moves fast. While I grasped the fundamentals, keeping up took a lot of effort. And as a self-taught “expert,” I’d never quite match an experienced data scientist.

So here I am — extensively using AI. It helps me work faster and has broadened my field of operation.

Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#13

Post by janalsncm »

As an MLE I get a decent amount of LinkedIn messages. I think I got on someone’s list or something. I would bucket the companies into two groups:

1) Established companies (meta/google/uber) with lots of data and who want MLEs to make 0.1% improvements because each of those is worth millions.

2) Startups mostly proxying OpenAI calls.

The first group is definitely not hype. Their core business relies on ML and they don’t need hype for that to be true.

For the second group, it depends on the business model. The fact that you can make an API call doesn’t mean anything. What matters is solving a customer problem.

I also (selfishly) believe a lot of the second group will hire folks to train faster and more personalized models once their business models are proven.

Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#15

Post by rikroots »

I posted a recent Show HN[1] detailing why I felt the need to understand the basics of what LLMs do, and how they do it. Even though I've no interest in building or directly training LLMs, I've learned the critical importance of preparing documentation for LLM training to try and stop AI models generating garbage code when working with my canvas library.

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44079296

Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#16

Post by fmbb »

xiphias2 wrote: post #6

It's your choice, but it's definitely not ,,just another tool''. Most of my LLMs made lots of mistakes, but Codex with $200 subscription changed my workflow totally, and now I'm having 40 pull requests/day merged. Treat LLMs as interns, increase your test coverage with them to the point that they can't ruin your codebase and get really good at reviewing code and splitting tasks up to smaller digestible ones, and prom…

Can you share your source?

Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#17

Post by sMarsIntruder »

loveparade wrote: post #8

I come from a more traditional (PhD) ML/DL background. I wouldn't recommend getting into (1) because the field is incredibly saturated. We have hundreds of new, mostly low quality, papers each day. If you want to get into AI/ML on a more fundamental level now is probably the worst time in terms of competition. There are probably 100x more people in this field than there are jobs, and most of them have a stronger back…

Looks like OP’s curiosity isn’t just about deep diving LLMs —he’s probably itching to dig into adjacent topics like RAG, AI pipelines, and all the other adjacent LLM rabbit holes.

So in that case I don’t see why not?

Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#18

Post by bigstrat2003 »

Option 2 for sure. Make use of them if you find them useful, or don't if you don't. Personally I find LLMs to be pretty much useless as a tool so I don't use them, but if you get use out of them then more power to you (just be careful that their inherent unreliability isn't costing you more effort than they save). I think you should in no way consider option 1 - this is very much a hype bubble that is going to burst sooner or later. How much later I can't say, but I don't see any way it doesn't happen. I certainly wouldn't advise anyone to hitch their career to a bubble like that.

Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#19

Post by reactordev »

WA wrote: post #14

To piggyback on this discussion, what do you all think about option 3: Work for companies (as a consultant?) to help them implement LLMs/AI into their traditional processes?

You’ll find LLMs need for precision prompts at odds with business concepts and requirements. You’ll struggle to unravel decades of process that is little understood in its entirety in order to build a workflow for it. This is the current state of Enterprise AI/ML.

Re: Ask HN: Go deep into AI/LLMs or just use them as tools?

#20

Post by moltar »

xiphias2 wrote: post #6

It's your choice, but it's definitely not ,,just another tool''. Most of my LLMs made lots of mistakes, but Codex with $200 subscription changed my workflow totally, and now I'm having 40 pull requests/day merged. Treat LLMs as interns, increase your test coverage with them to the point that they can't ruin your codebase and get really good at reviewing code and splitting tasks up to smaller digestible ones, and prom…

What kind of tasks you give Codex?

I gave it an honest chance, but couldn’t get a single PR out of it. It would just continue to make mistakes. And even when it got close I asked it a minor tweak and it made things worse. I iterated 7 times on the same small problem.

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