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Gemini Diffusion

simonwillison.net

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Re: Gemini Diffusion

#141

Post by incognito124 »

m101 wrote: post #135

It makes one wonder what intelligence really is. The more I think about it the more I feel that speed is a fundamental unit of intelligence, with the other being some simple computation unit. As in, intelligence = speed * simple computation. If you look around us it is the ability to iterate that drives innovation (and thereby evidence of "intelligence"). LLMs in industry are more useful, and used, the faster they ar…

Lately, I am thinking that intelligence is just a large memory + efficient search. I'm basing that off of multiple accounts of really smart people having extremely a good memory (I can only think of von Neumann right now, who could reproduce complete books)

Re: Gemini Diffusion

#142

Post by kmacdough »

macleginn wrote: post #139
thinkingemote wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bob went to Venice to pick up the doge." Where doge is both the name of a title (like duke) but it is misspelt "dog". The use of "Venice" where doge's are could increase a the likelihood of a smarter spell check keeping doge and not correcting to dog. Looking at a wider context might see that Bob is talking about a pupper. A simpler example would be "spell cheque"

A spelling error, using one dictionary definition, is "an error in the conventionally accepted form of spelling a word" --- mistaking one word for another does not fall under this definition. It is true that we now expect spell checkers to do grammatical checking as well, but a pure spell checker can indeed rely on a wordlist for English (this wouldn't work in languages with more developed morphology and/or frequent…

Ok, but this is a technicality. Spell-checkers have slowly evolved into grammar checkers and what people really want is error correction. Whether people call it a spell checker a minor language issue (and the kind of things humans do all the time).

When teaching for your dictionary, ask: "is it obvious what they mean if I'm not being pedantic?"

Re: Gemini Diffusion

#143

Post by lukan »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #138
danielbln wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would suggest using an agentic system like Cline, so that the LLM can wander through the codebase by itself and do research and build a "mental model" and then set up an implementation plan. The you iterate in that and hand it off for implementation. This flow works significantly better than what you're describing.

> LLM can wander through the codebase by itself and do research and build a "mental model" It can't really do that due to context length limitations.

I guess people are talking about different kinds of projects here in terms of project size.

Re: Gemini Diffusion

#144

Post by beernet »

Serious question: Why does it appear that pages from this URL very often end up on top of HN? I don't find the content particularly special compared to the average HN post. Does the algorithm prefer certain URLs?

Re: Gemini Diffusion

#145

Post by stef25 »

ManuelKiessling wrote: post #81
airstrike wrote: post #3

That's...ridiculously fast. I still feel like the best uses of models we've seen to date is for brand new code and quick prototyping. I'm less convinced of the strength of their capabilities for improving on large preexisting content over which someone has repeatedly iterated. Part of that is because, by definition, models cannot know what is not in a codebase and there is meaningful signal in that negative space. En…

"...what is not in a codebase, and there is meaningful signal in that negative space." Man, I'm writing software for money for decades now, but this fundamental truth never occured to me, at least not consciously and with such clarity. So, thank you!

I understand what negative space is in art. Can you explain how this applies to writing software ?

Re: Gemini Diffusion

#146

Post by stef25 »

KingMob wrote: post #40
heliophobicdude wrote: post #4

I think the lede is being buried. This is a great and fast InstructGPT. This is absolutely going to be used in spell checks, codemods, and code editors. Instant edits feature can surgically perform text edits fast without all the extra fluff or unsolicited enhancements. I copied shadertoys, asked it to rename all variables to be more descriptive and pasted the result to see it still working. I'm impressed.

Spell check? Isn't that a well-solved problem at this point?

It might sound unbelievable but if you write in multiple languages and mix languages in the same message or sentence, often spell check doesn't work properly. Which is only normal.

I regularly send messages in 4 different languages (living in a bilingual city + frequent use of English and lots of Spanish friends). Sometimes even using 3 languages in one sentence.

Whatsapp kind of improved it now in that you can "activate" two languages at the same time. Apart from that I'm not sure there's much else that can be done.

It's not even that much of an edge case. Brussels is the one of the most international cities in the world, street names exist in 2 languages, a lot of slang and expressions get borrowed from other languages.

Re: Gemini Diffusion

#147

Post by mdp2021 »

m101 wrote: post #135

It makes one wonder what intelligence really is. The more I think about it the more I feel that speed is a fundamental unit of intelligence, with the other being some simple computation unit. As in, intelligence = speed * simple computation. If you look around us it is the ability to iterate that drives innovation (and thereby evidence of "intelligence"). LLMs in industry are more useful, and used, the faster they ar…

> what intelligence really is

Something that actually arrives to good results - the faster the better, but you have to be able to finally achieve. Achievement of solutions is still far from granted - so we will have to remain focusing on that.

Intelligence finds good solutions in a solutions space.

Re: Gemini Diffusion

#148

Post by ealexhudson »

kmacdough wrote: post #142
macleginn wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A spelling error, using one dictionary definition, is "an error in the conventionally accepted form of spelling a word" --- mistaking one word for another does not fall under this definition. It is true that we now expect spell checkers to do grammatical checking as well, but a pure spell checker can indeed rely on a wordlist for English (this wouldn't work in languages with more developed morphology and/or frequent…

Ok, but this is a technicality. Spell-checkers have slowly evolved into grammar checkers and what people really want is error correction. Whether people call it a spell checker a minor language issue (and the kind of things humans do all the time). When teaching for your dictionary, ask: "is it obvious what they mean if I'm not being pedantic?"

Agreed. "Dessert" vs "desert" - mistaking these two is often not a grammatical error (they're both nouns), but is a spelling error (they have quite different meanings, and the person who wrote the word simply spelled it wrongly).

Re: Gemini Diffusion

#149

Post by ealexhudson »

beernet wrote: post #144

Serious question: Why does it appear that pages from this URL very often end up on top of HN? I don't find the content particularly special compared to the average HN post. Does the algorithm prefer certain URLs?

Perhaps your content quality meter needs a recalibration?

Re: Gemini Diffusion

#150

Post by exe34 »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #138
danielbln wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would suggest using an agentic system like Cline, so that the LLM can wander through the codebase by itself and do research and build a "mental model" and then set up an implementation plan. The you iterate in that and hand it off for implementation. This flow works significantly better than what you're describing.

> LLM can wander through the codebase by itself and do research and build a "mental model" It can't really do that due to context length limitations.

It doesn't need the entire codebase, it just needs the call map, the function signatures, etc. It doesn't have to include everything in a call - but having access to all of it means it can pick what seems relevant.
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