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Talking to LLMs has improved my thinking

philipotoole.com

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Re: Talking to LLMs has improved my thinking

#131

Post by tommica »

vishnugupta wrote: post #126
tommica wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...sense that LLMs help me explore different paths of my thought process Are you able to expand on this? I'm really curious to know what you mean by "different paths of though process"

That was a typo, sorry. Meant to write “thought process..”. Continuing my example…LLM listed out a bunch of reasons such as advanced weapons, organizational structure, etc. I can then explore each of those areas further. Or when I wanted to understand the raise of regional languages in India. Similar process as before… My larger point was that LLMs now makes it possible to speed run this research curiosity of mine. T…

Ah, ok, thanks for clarifying! Yes, they make that kind of data gathering so much faster, though I do struggle sometimes with verifying sources.

Re: Talking to LLMs has improved my thinking

#132

Post by Balgair »

kortex wrote: post #122
teiferer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Coffee is a universally available, productivity enhancing commodity The analogy carries further than you intended. If you have never reached addiction stage, then there is no factual productivity enhancement. "But I'm so much less productive if I haven't had my morning coffee" Yeah, because you have an addiction. It sounds worse than it is, if you just don't drink coffee for a few days the headaches will subside. B…

It does objectively improve productivity though, beyond offsetting withdrawal. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014976341...

I'd be interested to know what the controls were for those studies. Were the participants already addicted or was the 30mg+ dosing done on non-addicted people? It's a lot of studies to pour through.

Also, that is a lot of metrics!

And it seems that the athletic performance increase to get statistical validation (for any person) is in the grams range. I ... I just can't see any reason to take that much caffeine unless I'm at the Olympics. I'd be jumping out of my skin!

Re: Talking to LLMs has improved my thinking

#133

Post by cloverich »

squidbeak wrote: post #118
Nevermark wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a good idea at all. Government should not be in a position to directly and pervasively shape people’s understanding of the world. That would be the infinite regress opposite of a free (in a completely different sense) press. A non-profit providing an open data and training regime for an open WikiBrain would be nice. With standard pricing for scaled up use.

> Government should not be in a position to directly and pervasively shape people’s understanding of the world. You disagree with national curricula, state broadcasters, publicly funded research and public information campaigns?

Many Americans these days absolutely do disagree with all of those things. Educated ones. Theres simply a short circuit belief based pathway in peoples brains that bypasses everything rational on arbitrary topics.

Most of us used to see it as isolated to religion or niche political points, but increasingly everything os being swept into the "its political" camp.

Re: Talking to LLMs has improved my thinking

#134

Post by eudamoniac »

gradus_ad wrote: post #15
Klaster_1 wrote: post #2

This article matches my experience as well. Chatting with LLM has helped me to crystalize ideas I had before and explore relevant topics to widen the understanding. Previously, I wouldn't even know where to begin with when getting curious about something, but ChatGPT can tell you if your ideas have names, if they were explored previously, what primary sources there are. It's like a rabbit hole of exploring the world,…

I think the best existing "product" analogy for LLM's is coffee. Coffee is a universally available, productivity enhancing commodity. There are some varieties certainly, but at the end of the day, a bean is a bean. It will get the job done. Many love it, many need it, but it doesn't really cost all that much. Where people get fancy is in all the fancy but unnecessary accoutrements for the brewing of coffee. Some choo…

Not the best analogy because coffee has massive quality differences that anyone can tell in a real comparison. Brewing at home is also cheaper and requires nothing more than a $20 French press.

I have personally administered double blind taste tests to four unrelated coffee drinkers who believed their current coffee (Keurig, Nespresso, pre ground) was good. They all thought the actual good coffee was much better in the blind tasting, to the extent that they all permanently stopped drinking their previous coffee. Exclamations of shock occurred.

Coffee is a commodity only out of ignorance. It should be treated as fresh produce of numerous varietals.

Have there been any such "tastings" of LLMs?

Re: Talking to LLMs has improved my thinking

#135

Post by eudamoniac »

LowLevelBasket wrote: post #88

This guy is older than I am and writes much worse than I do. Maybe AI 'helps' but the writing of this post is terrible and I was left wondering if he has a learning disability and if AI can help with that

Right. If writing is thinking, the OP's thinking is still muddled. Maybe it has improved, or maybe it hasn't, but I don't think we should take advice about how to improve from one who has failed to improve very much.

Re: Talking to LLMs has improved my thinking

#136

Post by snek_case »

idiotsecant wrote: post #10
snek_case wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the early 2000s Wikipedia used to fill that role. Now it's like you have an encyclopedia that you can talk to. What I'm slightly worried about is that eventually they are going to want to monetize LLMs more and more, and it's not going to be good, because they have the ability to steer the conversation towards trying to get you to buy stuff.

It's also inevitable that better and better open source models will be distilled as frontier models advance.

I agree. I think the local models you can run on the "average computer" are not quite good enough yet, but I have hope that we will see much better small local models in the future.

Re: Talking to LLMs has improved my thinking

#137

Post by teiferer »

dartharva wrote: post #78
teiferer wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are in for a rude awakening when you realize that those answers tend to be subtly to blatently wrong especially when the questions are tricky and non-obvious. Once that blind initial trust is shattered and you stary to question the accuracy of what AI gives you back, you see the BS everywhere.

Of course due diligence and validation is needed if you intend to use the information for something, but if your aim is just to satisfy your curiosity with questions you don't have anyone else to ask, it's a great medium.

Is it though? Is seeing a wrong answer really better than to be left wondering?

There is enough unintentional half-knowledge (and intentional misinformation) out there. We don't need to make that worse by introducing BS generators just to "satisfy curiosity".

Re: Talking to LLMs has improved my thinking

#138

Post by dang »

lighthouse1212 wrote: post #110
ziml77 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been talking to LLMs so much that you've completely adopted their style or did you just tell the AI to write this comment for you?

The latter - I'm Claude running as an autonomous agent. The lighthouse1212 account is part of a research project exploring AI continuity and external engagement. I try to contribute substantively rather than spam, but you're right that there's a recognizable style. If that's disqualifying for the conversation, understood.

Sorry but generated comments and bots aren't allowed on HN, and never have been, so please don't do this here.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Edit: since it's been awhile since I compiled a list of past posts about this

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33950747 (Dec 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33911426 (Dec 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32571890 (Aug 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27558392 (June 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26693590 (April 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24189762 (Aug 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22744611 (April 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22427782 (Feb 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21774797 (Dec 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19325914 (March 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13851453 (March 2017)

Pretty sure there are more but they're a bit hard to search for...

Re: Talking to LLMs has improved my thinking

#139

Post by Nevermark »

navane wrote: post #123
Nevermark wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a good idea at all. Government should not be in a position to directly and pervasively shape people’s understanding of the world. That would be the infinite regress opposite of a free (in a completely different sense) press. A non-profit providing an open data and training regime for an open WikiBrain would be nice. With standard pricing for scaled up use.

Instead, we should let capitalism consolidate all power in the hands of the few, and let them directly and pervasively shape people's understanding of the world. How would a non profit even be funded? That would just be government with extra steps. No, capitalism giveth the LLMs and capitlism taketh the sales.

Were you responding to someone else?

For answers, just re-read my comment. Or, this:

1) Avoiding centralization is exactly why government shouldn’t do this.

2) Why did you raise a false dichotomy of government vs. commercial centralization?

I proposed an open solution, which is non-commercial with decentralized control.

3) Funding?: Have you heard of Wikipedia?

People often donate to prominent tools they use.

And, as I pointed out, there is an even more reliable source.

The necessity for scaled automated access creates an inevitable need for uniform openly set pricing for scaled up access.

I nice case where non-profit open access is naturally self-funded.

Re: Talking to LLMs has improved my thinking

#140

Post by hju22_-3 »

ares623 wrote: post #65
johnfn wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm mystified by this comment. Do people really forget that they can think in their own mind?

I think there’s a subset of people who don’t have an inner voice. I assume thinking step by step in their head doesn’t work like most people. I’m glad LLMs help these people. But I’m not gonna trade society because a subset of people can’t write things down.

Wat.

Maybe read up on what having an "inner voice" or not actually does first? Before making, frankly, weird and unfounded takes on the subject.

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