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The Rise of Whatever

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Re: The Rise of Whatever

#311

Post by jjcob »

thasso wrote: post #237
tehnub wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pair programming with coworkers over the years, many seem to have trouble with the keyboard, to the point where pressing right parenthesis is a significant burden and they don’t use right or down arrow to get out of the span but actually move their hand to their mouse and click out.

I'm shocked every time I go to City Hall and wait while the clerk types my name letter by letter with two fingers. Doesn't he do that every day?! How as it never occurred to him or anyone else that maybe, just maybe, they would benefit from a typing course. It’s just one example of a pattern I’ve noticed with a lot of office workers.

Maybe it's not that important? Taking 5 seconds vs 2 seconds to type a name is probably not that much of a difference? Especially when most of the time you are typing stuff that you need to ask how to spell anyway?

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#312

Post by windenntw »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #118

I disagree with many of the points on LLMs (but broadly agree with 80% of the post). But regardless of agreeing or not, it was a pleasure to read this because it's beautifully written, the arguments are solid, it makes you think, and the website has a personality, which is rare nowadays. I clicked halfheartedly, started to read halfheartedly, and got sucked into a read that threw me back into the good old days of the…

100 times this

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#313

Post by Ygg2 »

raincole wrote: post #44
gyomu wrote: post #10

Broadly agreed with all the points outlined in there. But for me the biggest issue with all this — that I don't see covered in here, or maybe just a little bit in passing — is what all of this is doing to beginners, and the learning pipeline. > There are people I once respected who, apparently, don’t actually enjoy doing the thing. They would like to describe what they want and receive Whatever — some beige sludge th…

People will write lengthy and convoluted explanation on why LLM isn't like calculator or microwave oven or other technology before. (Like OP's article) But it really is. Humans have been looking for easier and lazier ways to do things since the dawn of civilization. Tech never ever prevents people who really want to hone their skills from doing so. World record of 100m sprint kept improving even since car was invente…

> People will write lengthy and convoluted explanation on why LLM isn't like calculator or microwave oven or other technology before. (Like OP's article) But it really is.

There are clear differences. First of a calculator and microwave are quite different, but so is LLM. Both are time savers, in the sense of microwave saves time defrosting and calculator saves time calculating vs human.

They save time to achieve a goal. However calculators come with a penalty, by making multiplication easier they make user worse at it.

LLMs are like calculators but worse. They both are effort savers, and thus come with a huge learning penalty and unprecise enough that you need to learn to know better than them.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#315

Post by ted_bunny »

Semaphor wrote: post #274
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I rented I had a standard ceramic hob and still didn't see the point... sure, you gain some time, but it's maybe 5 minutes of unattended time where you can often be doing something else, vs. much worse taste. But I understand that with slow cookers it can make sense for other people. With induction I think it's outright pointless. As an anecdote, in my country there is a very popular brand of supermarket pizzas,…

> vs. much worse taste I have never had that issue when heating stuff up. Your pizza example is not reheating (and generally you never want to reheat anything that’s supposed to be crispy in the microwave; though not on the stove top either).

Reheat pizza on a stovetop covered on low heat. Better than the first time it was cooked. Yw

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#316

Post by bsenftner »

maleno wrote: post #280
raincole wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People will write lengthy and convoluted explanation on why LLM isn't like calculator or microwave oven or other technology before. (Like OP's article) But it really is. Humans have been looking for easier and lazier ways to do things since the dawn of civilization. Tech never ever prevents people who really want to hone their skills from doing so. World record of 100m sprint kept improving even since car was invente…

I think it's interesting that practically every time this point is made (and it is made so very often), the examples that are used to prove the point are objective and easy to measure. A 100m sprint time or a calculation of Pi is not the same as a work of art, because they can be measured objectively while art cannot. There is no equivalent in art-making to running a 100m sprint. The evaluation of a 100m sprint is no…

There is at least three major art markets: 1) pretty pictures to fill in a void (empty walls, dress up an article...), 2) prestige purchases for those trying to fill that void in their imposter syndrome, and 3) fellow artists who are really philosophers working beyond language. The whole reason art is evaluated with vague notions like taste, context, history and so on is because the work of artists left their audience's understanding several generations ago, but they still need to make a living, so these proxies are used so the general public does not feel left out. Serious art is leading edge philosophy operating in a medium beyond language, and for what it's worth AI will never be there, just like the majority of people.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#317

Post by lloeki »

gyomu wrote: post #10

Broadly agreed with all the points outlined in there. But for me the biggest issue with all this — that I don't see covered in here, or maybe just a little bit in passing — is what all of this is doing to beginners, and the learning pipeline. > There are people I once respected who, apparently, don’t actually enjoy doing the thing. They would like to describe what they want and receive Whatever — some beige sludge th…

> You try drawing a picture, and it sucks. You try playing the guitar, and you can't even get simple notes right.

> up until now, you had no choice and to keep making crappy pictures and playing crappy songs until you actually start to develop a taste for the effort, and a few years later you find yourself actually pretty darn competent at the thing. That's a pretty virtuous cycle.

https://www.deviantart.com/scotchi/art/keep-tryin-690533685

Exactly.

Only putting the work is going to get anyone places. And yes it takes _time_, like, tons, and there's no shortcut.

And I can explain in excruciating detail how to do an ollie or a kickflip even and from a physics point of view you would totally get it but to land the damn thing you simply have to put a shitload of time on the board and fail over and over and over again.

We come from a place where we've been trained as engineers or whatever to do this or that and - somewhat - critically think about things. Instead picture yourself in the shoes of a beginner: how would you, a beginner who has not built their own mental model of discipline $foo, even begin to be critical of AI output?

But we're being advertised magic powder and sweating overalls and whathaveyou that makes you lose weight a) instantly† and b) without going to the gym and well putting in the effort††.

LLMs are the speed diet of the mind.

† comparatively

†† not that putting any arbitrary amount of effort is going to get you places, there _is_ a thing such as wasteful effort; but NOT putting the effort is a solid guarantee that you won't.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#318

Post by franciscop »

andrepd wrote: post #308
franciscop wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am learning Japanese (again) now and it's such a stark improvement vs when I first tried. When I don't understand something, LLMs explain it perfectly well, and with a bit of prompting they give me the right practice bits I need for my level. For a specific example, when 2 grammar points seem to mean the same thing, teachers here in Japan would either not explain the difference, or make a confusing explanation in J…

> When I don't understand something, LLMs explain it perfectly well But my man, how do you know if it explains perfectly well or is just generating plausible-sounding slop? You're learning, so by definition you don't know!

Because at the beginning I didn't trust it and verified it in many different ways. I've got a fairly decent understanding of what LLMs hallucinate regarding language learning and levels, and luckily/unluckily I'm far enough for this to be a concern. e.g. I asked recently differences between 回答 vs 解答 and it was pretty good.

I also checked with some Japanese and my own notes contain more errors than the LLMs output by a large margin.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#319

Post by gattr »

Ezhik wrote: post #195

I feel it. We can debate AI over and over and over but my ultimate problem is not even the tech itself but the "whatever" part. I'm a bit annoyed with LLMs for coding, because I care about the craft. But I understand the premise of using them when the end goal is not "tech as a craft" but "tech as a means". But that still requires having some reason to use the tech. Hell, I feel the "tech as a means to get money" par…

On a more positive note, LLMs (or their successors) could be used to create a perfect tutor. Taylored for every individual, automatically adjusting learning material difficulty, etc.

But yeah, first we'll go through a few (?) years of the self-defeating "ChatGPT does my homework" and the necessary adjustments of how schools/unis function.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#320

Post by csomar »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #125
csomar wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my own test to measure performance: https://omarabid.com/gpt3-now So far the only model that showed significant advancement and differentiation was GPT-4.5. I advise to look at the problem and read GPT-4.5 answer. It'll show the difference to other "normal models" (including GPT-3.5) as it shows considerable levels of understanding. Other normal models are now more chatty and have a bit more data. But they do…

I was able to have Opus 4 one-shot it. Happy to share a screenshot if that wasn't your experience.

Interested to see your Opus 4 one-shot. I tried it very recently on Opus 4 and it burbled non-sense.
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