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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

#381

Post by qnleigh »

m0rc wrote: post #352

For learning, I find LLM's helpful as a knoledgeable "tutor" or "friend" during the reading of a complex paper or book. Before, when I got stuck, I spend lot's of time going around different books/pages/papers until I was able to find a simple enough explanation that allowed me to "catch up". Now, I can ask the LLM and then continue from there. Learning from a book is still the best... Although I have been told that…

Learning is an unproductive use of your time??? No one knows how LLMs will change things, but that sounds like terrible advice.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#382

Post by aswegs8 »

gavmor wrote: post #68
brcmthrowaway wrote: post #19

His other project, https://aivestor.tech/ , seems like a huge grift.

Or is it just an unproven attempt? Seems like a pretty straightforward value proposition. Caveat emptor.

If you know anything about investing, you know it is highly likely to be either A a grift or B an innocent, but naive attempt.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#383

Post by moffkalast »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #374
fluoridation wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So I asked ChatGPT to explain it to me, I came up with my own mental model from it's explanation, told it that, then it corrected me where I misunderstood things. We went backwards and forwards for an hour, me asking questions, it correcting me, until I felt like I understood the whole picture. If you're only checking your understanding against the one source you used to obtain it, how can you tell whether your unde…

Self-consistency and consistency with your lived experience are good heuristics. Reality is self-consistent, so anything that doesn't add up indicated an error in the source or your understanding of it (or both). EDIT: I think it's a kind thing you need to tune yourself into. OTOH, I've observed many (most?) people seemingly being completely oblivious to self-consistency issues of their beliefs and mental models, or…

> consistency with your lived experience

Aka confirmation bias.

We like explanations that fit what we expect, even if they're completely wrong.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#384

Post by Arn_Thor »

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…

> generate a web page with diagrams and organized information flow.

Sounds like you'd be just as well off link-surfing Wikipedia?

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#385

Post by norome »

matherial wrote: post #306

This is, without exaggeration, probably the fiftieth blog post or long-form comment about how someone is using an LLM for "complex learning", and I'd just really like to see at least one of these to be accompanied by a statement saying what are the kinds of problems the author can now confidently solve that they couldn't before. In my experience, LLMs are really good for taking up your time and making you feel like y…

as ever the real problem is formulating questions, which requires clarity on the next discrete layer of missing comprehension, which requires self-reflection and genuine insight into your own mind.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#386

Post by RandomLensman »

fluoridation wrote: post #380
TeMPOraL wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-consistency and consistency with your lived experience are good heuristics. Reality is self-consistent, so anything that doesn't add up indicated an error in the source or your understanding of it (or both). EDIT: I think it's a kind thing you need to tune yourself into. OTOH, I've observed many (most?) people seemingly being completely oblivious to self-consistency issues of their beliefs and mental models, or…

How do you do that with topics not directly experimenceable, like quantum mechanics or, as in this case, silicon manufacture?

Not the OP, but I don't think you can. The understanding someone manufacturing silicon has will be not be attainable by reading about it etc. Similar for QM, no replacement for doing (some of) the math yourself, be involved in experiments etc.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#387

Post by embedding-shape »

matherial wrote: post #306

This is, without exaggeration, probably the fiftieth blog post or long-form comment about how someone is using an LLM for "complex learning", and I'd just really like to see at least one of these to be accompanied by a statement saying what are the kinds of problems the author can now confidently solve that they couldn't before. In my experience, LLMs are really good for taking up your time and making you feel like y…

> I'd just really like to see at least one of these to be accompanied by a statement saying what are the kinds of problems the author can now confidently solve that they couldn't before.

I've spent a lot of time with LLMs for the last two years. Something I've tried, almost for decades, is to learn enough CUDA programming to be productive with it when needed. About 6 months ago, after again banging my head against it for weeks, something finally clicked and I feel like I've overcome the initial step of at least grokking the needed ideas so I know where to go next, and I can actually write + compile + use kernels made for my use cases. I won't claim to understand everything, but I couldn't do what I can today, before I learnt the things I now know.

~2 years ago, because of my very weak math foundation, I basically said "Well, CUDA looks really interesting and really fun, but it's too difficult, lets focus on other things", even after reading some starting resources and stuff. But, by asking countless of dumb questions to LLMs, forcing it to steer me in the right direction, when I'm otherwise just driving on the highway or what not, I finally feel like I have a grasp on something I earlier only dreamed about understanding, and I'm able to be productive with it now.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#388

Post by snmx999 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #374
fluoridation wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So I asked ChatGPT to explain it to me, I came up with my own mental model from it's explanation, told it that, then it corrected me where I misunderstood things. We went backwards and forwards for an hour, me asking questions, it correcting me, until I felt like I understood the whole picture. If you're only checking your understanding against the one source you used to obtain it, how can you tell whether your unde…

Self-consistency and consistency with your lived experience are good heuristics. Reality is self-consistent, so anything that doesn't add up indicated an error in the source or your understanding of it (or both). EDIT: I think it's a kind thing you need to tune yourself into. OTOH, I've observed many (most?) people seemingly being completely oblivious to self-consistency issues of their beliefs and mental models, or…

Reality is most likely self-consistent, but as we can only experience a tiny part of it it‘s impossible to tell. Also, parts of reality may appear to be contradictory with each other when some pieces are not known.

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#389

Post by nathell »

matherial wrote: post #306

This is, without exaggeration, probably the fiftieth blog post or long-form comment about how someone is using an LLM for "complex learning", and I'd just really like to see at least one of these to be accompanied by a statement saying what are the kinds of problems the author can now confidently solve that they couldn't before. In my experience, LLMs are really good for taking up your time and making you feel like y…

I’ve found it helpful to ask LLMs specific questions about your knowledge gaps, or ask for concrete worked examples that illustrate the ideas you’re learning about.

In [0], I ask: „When applying Hidden Markov Models to POS tagging in NLP, what do the latent states and observations usually represent?” I then follow up with some specific questions and requests for walkthrough. You can’t see it from this conversations, but I have Wikipedia and a bunch of other resources open in separate pages, cross-reading, and I follow up with a handwritten toy implementation of a Viterbi-based POS tagger once my mental model crystallizes. This is very different from a 500-word summary of quantum physics, and I still had to put in effort (this is unescapable!), but I found the experience rewarding. Also note that this is relearning of a topic that was part of my uni curriculum but long forgotten.

In [1] and [2], I’m learning Spanish by reading García Lorca’s poems. Here again I’m going through the texts with a dictionary, and augmenting my learning with what a dictionary won’t tell me: given the usage of a word or phrase in this specific poem, is it something that could occur in everyday speech, or is it poetical?

[0]: https://chatgpt.com/share/6a743bc7-d0dc-83eb-acc9-8f2faaffc4...

[1]: https://chatgpt.com/share/6a731be6-26bc-83eb-8d21-c965da5364...

[2]: https://chatgpt.com/share/6a731c01-5604-83eb-a5b8-cd1295d0ef...

Re: How I use LLMs to learn complex topics

#390

Post by __alexs »

fluoridation wrote: post #369
__alexs wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you really say you you've learnt the alphabet if you haven't read the document in which the first use of the letter Y appeared?

Because you can successfully use it to communicate with other people. That's the grounding truth. If you'd only ever read about it and never actually employed it then yes, you would not be able to make that claim.

That's exactly what OP was doing, or does teaching kids not qualify somehow?
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