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Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

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Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#141

Post by latexr »

progval wrote: post #9
dcc wrote: post #7

One important distinction is that the strength of LLMs isn't just in storing or retrieving knowledge like Wikipedia, it’s in comprehension. LLMs will return faulty or imprecise information at times, but what they can do is understand vague or poorly formed questions and help guide a user toward an answer. They can explain complex ideas in simpler terms, adapt responses based on the user's level of understanding, and…

An unreliable computer treated as a god by a pre-information-age society sounds like a Star Trek episode.

“Computer, raktajino”, asked the president of the United Earth for the last time. One sip was followed by immediate death.

The new versions of replicators and ship computers were based on ancient technology called LLMs. They frequently made mistakes like adding rusty nails and glue to food, or replacing entire mugs of coffee with cyanide. One time they encouraged a whole fleet to go into a supernova. Many more disasters followed.

Scientists everywhere begged the government and Starfleet to go back to the previous reliable computers, but were shunned time and again. “Can’t you see how much money we’re saving? So what if a few billion lives are lost along the way? You’re thinking of the old old models, from six months ago. And listen, I hear that in five years these will be so powerful that a single replicator will be able to kill us all.”

Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#142

Post by kqr »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #91
xp84 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re probably right, but more because of erroneous categorization of what is a “technology.” We take for granted technology older than like 600 years ago (basically most people would say the printing press is a technology and maybe forget that the wheel and, indeed, crop cultivation). AI could certainly be in the top 3 most significant technologies of things developed since (inclusive) the printing press. W…

> We take for granted technology older than like 600 years ago (basically most people would say the printing press is a technology and maybe forget that the wheel and, indeed, crop cultivation). The printing press is more than 600 years old. It's more than 1200 years old.

I think this has less to do with age and more what we are taught. The printing press, steam engine, and the wheel were repeatedly drilled into me as world-changing technologies, so those are the ones I'd think of.

But there are more. Rope is arguably more important than the wheel. Their combination in pulleys to exchange force for distance still astound me, and is massively useful.

Writing lets us transmit ideas indirectly. While singing and storytelling lets ideas travel generations, they don't become part of the hypothetical global consciousness as immediately as with writing, which can be read and copied by anyone once written.

I'd put statistics in this bucket too, its invention being more recent than 600 years. Before that, we just didn't know how useful information is in aggregate. Faced with a table of data, we only ever looked up individual (hopefully representative) records in it.

Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#143

Post by latexr »

dcc wrote: post #7

One important distinction is that the strength of LLMs isn't just in storing or retrieving knowledge like Wikipedia, it’s in comprehension. LLMs will return faulty or imprecise information at times, but what they can do is understand vague or poorly formed questions and help guide a user toward an answer. They can explain complex ideas in simpler terms, adapt responses based on the user's level of understanding, and…

Sounds like a good way to ensure society never “reboots”.

A “frozen snapshot” of reliable knowledge is infinitely more valuable than a system which gives you wrong instructions and you have no idea what action will work or kill you. Anyone can “explain complex ideas in simple terms” if you don’t have to care about being correct.

What kind of scenario is this, even? We had such a calamity that we need to “reboot” society yet still have access to all the storage and compute power required to run LLMs? It sounds like a doomsday prepper fantasy for LLM fans.

Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#144

Post by latexr »

jack_pp wrote: post #75
progval wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An unreliable computer treated as a god by a pre-information-age society sounds like a Star Trek episode.

Remember the first time you touched a computer, the first game you ever played or the first little script you wrote that did something useful. I imagine this is how a lot of people feel when using LLM's especially now that it's new. It is the most incredible technology ever created by this point in our history imo and the cynicism on HN is astounding to me.

> It is the most incredible technology ever created by this point in our history imo and the cynicism on HN is astounding to me.

What astounds me is how proponents can so often be so rosy-eyed and hyperbolic, apparently without ever wondering if it may be them who are wrong. Or if maybe there is a middle ground. The people you are calling cynics are probably seeing you as naive.

LLMs are definitely not “the most incredible technology ever created by this point in our history”. That is hyperbolic nonsense in line with Pichai calling them “more profound than electricity and fire”. Listen to your words! Really consider what you’re saying.

Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#145

Post by hnfong »

latexr wrote: post #144
jack_pp wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember the first time you touched a computer, the first game you ever played or the first little script you wrote that did something useful. I imagine this is how a lot of people feel when using LLM's especially now that it's new. It is the most incredible technology ever created by this point in our history imo and the cynicism on HN is astounding to me.

> It is the most incredible technology ever created by this point in our history imo and the cynicism on HN is astounding to me. What astounds me is how proponents can so often be so rosy-eyed and hyperbolic, apparently without ever wondering if it may be them who are wrong. Or if maybe there is a middle ground. The people you are calling cynics are probably seeing you as naive. LLMs are definitely not “the most incr…

Unfortunately I think you've proven the GP's point at least on the cynicism part.

Unless you have something substantial to support your claim that `LLMs are definitely (emphasis yours) not “the most incredible technology ever created by this point in our history”.`

I mean, I personally think the jury is probably still out on this one, but as long as there's a non-zero chance of this being true, the "definitely" part could use some tempering.

PS: FWIW countering (perceived) hyperbolism with an equal but opposite hyberbolism just makes you as hyperbolic as the ones you try to counter.

Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#146

Post by hansmayer »

jack_pp wrote: post #75
progval wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An unreliable computer treated as a god by a pre-information-age society sounds like a Star Trek episode.

Remember the first time you touched a computer, the first game you ever played or the first little script you wrote that did something useful. I imagine this is how a lot of people feel when using LLM's especially now that it's new. It is the most incredible technology ever created by this point in our history imo and the cynicism on HN is astounding to me.

Yes, the first time ever you have an interaction with them did indeed look magical and had something to it, wondering if these machines are passing the Turing test already. Alas, fast forward a few years, and many thousands of LoC generated by paid for 'latest and ever improving models', I was never more certain that the tools are unfortunately just statistical machines and the tail end of the 20+ years of machine learning, that is, learning how to guess outputs based on inputs. Yes you can quickly generate a scaffolding for an app. You can even do more than that, if you are very particular with your prompts. It can even sort-of stand in for the search engines we knew from before 2020s (unfortunately a sub-par replacement imho). But the key thing most of us complain about is that the returns are disproportionately small compared to the huge investments that have been made so far and even more that we have commitments for. More than 200B USD invested so far at least, for an industry generating < 15B revenue in 2024, how is that sound reasoning? How is that revolutionary? Hundreds of billions more promised, for what? So that lazy recruiters can generate job descriptions easier? Imagine the societal change we could have effected if that sort of money was invested in real problems. Hell, I'd propose even Mars colonisation would have been a more noble target then sinking in a trillion dollars over the next years into what? I would respect the VCs and GenAI crowd more if they realised that there may be some potential in the software-development field and focused effort just on that, as specialised field, as this is where we notably have some gains, notably also with a lot of crap to fix along the way. Instead they chose to push it as some kind of a B2C utility that everyone should use, probably aware of high disproportion between the investment and the return. They are desperate for the average Joe to learn to ask Gemini "oh no i spilled some sugar into my bowl, what should i do" - an actual commercial that was aired on TV. There is no cynicism, just evaluating the products realistically and seeing them what they are. The engineers were always the first to promote an innovative product - why are most of us not doing it now? Think about it.

Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#147

Post by latexr »

PeterStuer wrote: post #132
jack_pp wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember the first time you touched a computer, the first game you ever played or the first little script you wrote that did something useful. I imagine this is how a lot of people feel when using LLM's especially now that it's new. It is the most incredible technology ever created by this point in our history imo and the cynicism on HN is astounding to me.

I have been involved with AI for over 40 years. I assure you anyone being shown a current frontier model in operation 10 years ago would have been blown off their socks. Yet here we are. Rather than exploring this fantastic new tool, so many here are obsessed with pointing out flaws and shortcomings. I get the angst of a world facing dramatic change. I don't get the denial and deliberate ignorance flaunted as somehow…

> Yet here we are. Rather than exploring this fantastic new tool, so many here are obsessed with pointing out flaws and shortcomings.

Now think about any technology you disapprove of, and imagine that defence: “We have just invented bombs and killer drones, yet rather than exploring these fantastic new tools, so many here are obsessed with pointing out flaws and shortcomings.”

> I get the angst of a world facing dramatic change.

Respectfully, I think you’re being too reductive. There are legitimate arguments and worries being exposed, it is not people being frightened simpletons afraid of change.

> I don't get the denial and deliberate ignorance flaunted as somehow deep insight.

Some of that always happens. But if that and fear of change are how you see the main tenets of the argument, I ask you to look at them more attentively and try to understand what you’re missing.

Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#148

Post by tootyskooty »

One underdiscussed advantage is that an LLM makes knowledge language agnostic.

While less obvious to people that primarily consume en.wiki (as most things are well covered in English), for many other languages even well-understood concepts often have poor pages. But even the English wiki has large gaps that are otherwise covered in other languages (people and places, mostly).

LLMs get you the union of all of this, in turn viewable through arbitrary language "lenses".

Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#149

Post by hansmayer »

zzzeek wrote: post #78
jack_pp wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember the first time you touched a computer, the first game you ever played or the first little script you wrote that did something useful. I imagine this is how a lot of people feel when using LLM's especially now that it's new. It is the most incredible technology ever created by this point in our history imo and the cynicism on HN is astounding to me.

You might want to read about a technology called "farming". Pretty sure as far as transformative incredible technologies, the ability for humans to create nourishment at global scale blows the pants off the text / image imitation machine

Or something called "Airplane", imagine being able to visit the remotest part of the Earth within 24h, it would have blown the socks off of our ancestors, wouldn't it? Also fairly remarkable compared to "I found the problem! I need to connect to the database before querying it...", "You're absolutely right, I forgot strings cannot be compared to numbers" etc

Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#150

Post by latexr »

hnfong wrote: post #145
latexr wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is the most incredible technology ever created by this point in our history imo and the cynicism on HN is astounding to me. What astounds me is how proponents can so often be so rosy-eyed and hyperbolic, apparently without ever wondering if it may be them who are wrong. Or if maybe there is a middle ground. The people you are calling cynics are probably seeing you as naive. LLMs are definitely not “the most incr…

Unfortunately I think you've proven the GP's point at least on the cynicism part. Unless you have something substantial to support your claim that `LLMs are definitely (emphasis yours) not “the most incredible technology ever created by this point in our history”.` I mean, I personally think the jury is probably still out on this one, but as long as there's a non-zero chance of this being true, the " definitely " par…

> Unless you have something substantial to support your claim that

I expected it to be clear from my use of Pichai’s words for comparison that fire and electricity (you know, the thing without which LLMs can’t even function) are substantial obvious examples. For more, see the other replies on the thread. I didn’t think it necessary to repeat all the other obvious ideas like the wheel, or farming, or medicine, or writing, or…

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