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How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

laurentiugabriel.github.io

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Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#201

Post by unclebucknasty »

8bitsout wrote: post #48

I thought LLMs were a great tool for learning new topics - perhaps even complex ones. But overtime, I have had several frustrations with this. First, I get exhausted reading LLM prose. I really don't want to read anything generated by something like Opus 5 at this point. Second, as I dive deeper, I need a way to organize the information in a useful way as I begin to branch out in many different directions. I have tri…

>LLM prose is annoyingly dense, and the useful information gets lost in a bunch of noise.

This problem doesn't get talked about enough and is second only to the hallucination problem IMO.

AI produces so much noise to wade through in order to find signal, and the more expertise you have in a field the more that costs. That noise directly subtracts signifcantly from productivity gains.

And, I think the problem is directly related to the hallucination problem. It feels very much like an effort to kitchen sink the response in order to provide some value among possible hallucinations.

It also seems to be a byproduct of Gen AI operation. It just fundamentally doesn't understand what it's outputting, so doesn't know how to narrow down to the most salient bits.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#202

Post by voidhorse »

gb2d_hn wrote: post #80
copperx wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much better to feed the book to the LLM and ask questions as you read along, instead of asking the LLM to basically write a custom book for you from scratch.

I came across the socratic method recently, and have used it to learn a couple of topics that I was having trouble getting to stick. There are some SKILL.md's available for it. It works for concepts as opposed to facts, and causes the model to guide you to answers through your own reasoning, which is both much more engaging than reading a wall of LLM text and helps the information stick.

The "Socratic Method" (aka maieutic) skills annoy me, precisely because when you read them they are the kind of low-effort, low-expertise crap someone who over relies on AI would naively come up with when tasked with the problem of coming up with skills for learning. "Hey the Platonic dialogues are pretty cool and smart, let's do that".

The body of literature on learning theory, and beyond that on specific types of learning and specific mediums such as learning from text is so rich there are way more useful models to draw from. Believe it or not, prellm, researchers in the textual learning field had already demonstrated you can achieve performance equal or better than novice tutors using pretty basic computer aids that follow specific hint/pump interaction structures. Guiding an LLM to use these findings has evidence backing it and is way better than telling it "i guess be like socrates". The problem is, to realize there might be richer more effective and highly researched ways of tackling the problem beyond the first fart of a thought you had one afternoon requires the deep respect for expertise and specialization that precisely basically everyone in the AI space right now fundamentally lacks.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#203

Post by colordrops »

8bitsout wrote: post #48

I thought LLMs were a great tool for learning new topics - perhaps even complex ones. But overtime, I have had several frustrations with this. First, I get exhausted reading LLM prose. I really don't want to read anything generated by something like Opus 5 at this point. Second, as I dive deeper, I need a way to organize the information in a useful way as I begin to branch out in many different directions. I have tri…

You can instruct it to be terse and even take on a specific voice if the standard prose bothers you.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#205

Post by [deleted] »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #181
copperx wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much better to feed the book to the LLM and ask questions as you read along, instead of asking the LLM to basically write a custom book for you from scratch.

Even with the latest models today, the hallucination rate is absurdly high on anything deeper than surface level knowledge or something that can be directly scraped from reddit. And you notice when it's a topic you know well or something like software where you can immediately tell the options it's giving you don't exist on the page. Leading to the amusing statement "LLMs are bad at what I do but great at everything…

[deleted]

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#206

Post by frogperson »

8bitsout wrote: post #48

I thought LLMs were a great tool for learning new topics - perhaps even complex ones. But overtime, I have had several frustrations with this. First, I get exhausted reading LLM prose. I really don't want to read anything generated by something like Opus 5 at this point. Second, as I dive deeper, I need a way to organize the information in a useful way as I begin to branch out in many different directions. I have tri…

I've found it helpfull to ask the LLM to generate a sylybus for the topic. treat the sylybus as a design doc for a price of software. i find they do much better when they have subtasks to focus on. they can do big picture and small picture, but they can't do both at the same time.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#207

Post by le-mark »

hank1931 wrote: post #160
mikenew wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've decided that the main thing I'm building is my own mental model. You can take notes, create docs, put graphs and websites together, but unless I'm just trying to generate some reference material the only real objective is to develop the understanding and intuitions inside my own brain. So I have the LLM offer a very short explanation of something, and from there's it's just me asking questions. Anything that fee…

I do this too. I use Claude. I picked a voice I like. I go on a three mile walk. I will ask it questions about a topic that I want to learn about. If it starts telling me more than I want to hear right then, I will say "stop". It doesn't get offended. I then ask it something else. I find this very effective. I control it so it only explains to me what I want explained. If what it says sparks questions on a related to…

Can you say what topics you’re using this method to learn? I think it would be more effective for some than others.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#208

Post by AdieuToLogic »

royal__ wrote: post #24

The biggest thing I've learned from doing stuff like this is that there are no shortcuts. At some point or another, to truly learn something deeply, you've got to dig in to the boring details and do things the hard way. LLMs can help with this...but I find it's usually tempting to try and just offload the boring stuff to them, which doesn't work.

> The biggest thing I've learned from doing stuff like this is that there are no shortcuts. At some point or another, to truly learn something deeply, you've got to dig in to the boring details and do things the hard way.

This is the only path to mastery, or understanding if one prefers. There are no shortcuts to a person achieving deep understanding (a.k.a. "Aha!" moments).

Can a tool such as GenAI be beneficial to someone who already has done the work to understand? Absolutely. But it cannot infuse mastery into a person simply by its use.

Only the time and effort a person devotes can do that.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#209

Post by jijji »

8bitsout wrote: post #48

I thought LLMs were a great tool for learning new topics - perhaps even complex ones. But overtime, I have had several frustrations with this. First, I get exhausted reading LLM prose. I really don't want to read anything generated by something like Opus 5 at this point. Second, as I dive deeper, I need a way to organize the information in a useful way as I begin to branch out in many different directions. I have tri…

something to try that works really well is to put "explain this as if you're talking to a 5th grader" at the end of your request.... it just breaks down the text into more manageable sentences that can be understood by general audiences

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#210

Post by planckscnst »

8bitsout wrote: post #48

I thought LLMs were a great tool for learning new topics - perhaps even complex ones. But overtime, I have had several frustrations with this. First, I get exhausted reading LLM prose. I really don't want to read anything generated by something like Opus 5 at this point. Second, as I dive deeper, I need a way to organize the information in a useful way as I begin to branch out in many different directions. I have tri…

You can make something like the link below. I'd say it's a more than marginal improvement. It's still tiring, but it's much better according to my taste. I imagine everyone would have their own version of this for their own preferences.

It's a loop that uses adversarial review to check several dimensions of the writing:

https://github.com/Vibecodelicious/llm-conductor/blob/main/w...

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