How I like explaining them to people:
"An LLM is a search engine that can remix."
An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia
261–270 of 365 posts
Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia
#262Interestingly almost every single comment on this post is either trivial or incoherent compared to HN discussions from 10 years ago. I wonder if interecting with LLMs degrades the human capacity for coherent thought?
I think its more that most reasonable people already stopped going into these LLM discussion threads a long time ago.
At the start of a hype cycle there is a lot of good discussions, then most reasonable people have established their opinions and stop engaging with it.
Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the user will at least need to know something about the topic beforehand. I used ChatGPT 5 over the weekend to double check dosing guidelines for a specific medication. "Provide dosage guidelines for medication [insert here]" It spit back dosing guidelines that were an order of magnitude wrong (suggested 100mcg instead of 1mg). When I saw 100mcg, I was suspicious and said "I don't think that's right" and it quickly…
LANGUAGE model, not FACT model.
I gave LLM a list of python packages and asked it to give me their respective licenses. Obviously it got some of them wrong. I had to manually check with the package's pypi page.
Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the user will at least need to know something about the topic beforehand. I used ChatGPT 5 over the weekend to double check dosing guidelines for a specific medication. "Provide dosage guidelines for medication [insert here]" It spit back dosing guidelines that were an order of magnitude wrong (suggested 100mcg instead of 1mg). When I saw 100mcg, I was suspicious and said "I don't think that's right" and it quickly…
Using a LLM for medical research is just as dangerous as Googling it. Always ask your doctors!
Almost certainly more I would think, precisely because of magnitude errors.
The ol' "What weighs more, a pound of feathers or two pounds of bricks" trick explains this perfectly to me.
Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
Using a LLM for medical research is just as dangerous as Googling it. Always ask your doctors!
I don’t disagree that you should use your doctor as your primary source for medical decision making, but I also think this is kind of an unrealistic take. I should also say that I’m not an AI hype bro. I think we’re a long ways off from true functional AGI and robot doctors. I have good insurance and have a primary care doctor with whom I have good rapport. But I can’t talk to her every time I have a medical question…
I always thought “ask your doctor” was included for liability reasons and not a thing that people actually could do.
I also have good insurance and a PCP. The idea that I could call them up just to ask “should I start doing this new exercise” or “how much aspirin for this sprained ankle?” is completely divorced from reality.
Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t disagree that you should use your doctor as your primary source for medical decision making, but I also think this is kind of an unrealistic take. I should also say that I’m not an AI hype bro. I think we’re a long ways off from true functional AGI and robot doctors. I have good insurance and have a primary care doctor with whom I have good rapport. But I can’t talk to her every time I have a medical question…
I always thought “ask your doctor” was included for liability reasons and not a thing that people actually could do. I also have good insurance and a PCP. The idea that I could call them up just to ask “should I start doing this new exercise” or “how much aspirin for this sprained ankle?” is completely divorced from reality.
I think "ask your doctor" is for prescription meds since only said doctor can write prescriptions.
And "your doctor" is actually "any doctor that is willing to write you a prescription for our medicine".
Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the main takeaways from The Bitter Lesson was that you should fire your linguists. GPT-2 knows more about human language than any linguist could ever hope to be able to convey. If you're hitching your wagon to human linguists, you'll always find yourself in a ditch in the end.
Sorry, 2 billion years of neurobiology beats 60 years of NLP/LLMs which knows less to nothing about language since "arbitrary points can never be refined or defined to specifics" check your corners and know your inputs. The bill is due on NLP.
Incoherent drivel.
Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
Using a LLM for medical research is just as dangerous as Googling it. Always ask your doctors!
I don’t disagree that you should use your doctor as your primary source for medical decision making, but I also think this is kind of an unrealistic take. I should also say that I’m not an AI hype bro. I think we’re a long ways off from true functional AGI and robot doctors. I have good insurance and have a primary care doctor with whom I have good rapport. But I can’t talk to her every time I have a medical question…
> it can take weeks to just get a phone call
> If I manage to get an appointment, it’s a 15 minute slot
I'm sorry that this is what "good insurance" gets you.
Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia
#269I totally agree with the author. Sadly, I feel like that's not what the majority of LLM users tend to view LLMs. And it's definitely not what AI companies marketing. > The key thing is to develop an intuition for questions it can usefully answer vs questions that are at a level of detail where the lossiness matters the problem is that in order to develop an intuition for questions that LLMs can answer, the user will…
> the user will at least need to know something about the topic beforehand. I used ChatGPT 5 over the weekend to double check dosing guidelines for a specific medication. "Provide dosage guidelines for medication [insert here]" It spit back dosing guidelines that were an order of magnitude wrong (suggested 100mcg instead of 1mg). When I saw 100mcg, I was suspicious and said "I don't think that's right" and it quickly…
With search and references, and without search and references are two different tools. They're supposed to be closer to the same thing, but are not. That isn't to say there's a guarantee of correctness with references, but in my experience, accuracy is better, and seeing unexpected references is helpful when confirming.
Re: An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t disagree that you should use your doctor as your primary source for medical decision making, but I also think this is kind of an unrealistic take. I should also say that I’m not an AI hype bro. I think we’re a long ways off from true functional AGI and robot doctors. I have good insurance and have a primary care doctor with whom I have good rapport. But I can’t talk to her every time I have a medical question…
I always thought “ask your doctor” was included for liability reasons and not a thing that people actually could do. I also have good insurance and a PCP. The idea that I could call them up just to ask “should I start doing this new exercise” or “how much aspirin for this sprained ankle?” is completely divorced from reality.
Yes, exactly this. I am an anxious, detail-focused person. I could call or message for every health-related question that comes to mind, but that would not be a good use of anyone’s time. My doctor is great, but she does not care about the minutiae of my health like I do, nor do I expect her to.