Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

LLMs reward expertise

seangoedecke.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

591–600 of 607 posts

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#591

Post by tripzilch »

sidrag22 wrote: post #531
NichoPaolucci wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are big differences in what people call "tinkerers". Some are INTERESTED in building things, give it a little shot and find it to be daunting, and push it no further. True tinkerers have no problem with this, because they enjoy learning how things work. Installing Linux, Steam, Portal are all relatively straightforward tasks for someone who uses computers on the regular - but to some people this is just somethi…

for a lot of lower barrier to entry tinkering, for years i felt it was mostly just google a thing and follow directions. Feel like the only thing that really changed is the initial query can be a mess of kinda nonsense and still give you those nice directions, and you can instantly get clarity on a single direction if you get stuck. So the barrier is still kinda there to just grab the instructions and follow them, it…

> only thing that really changed is the initial query can be a mess of kinda nonsense

Little known fact maybe, but Google (also YouTube) search has been pretty great at this well before LLMs got really popular. I think it already started when they were changing from "keyword search" to "ask us a question search" but I'm not sure.

At some point I figured, if they want me to type a whole question, I might get even better answers if I ask the question like I was a complete idiot.

> https://www.google.com/search?q=pls+how+to+make+the+steam+pl...

> https://www.google.com/search?q=i+wnt+terminal+to+say+where+...

I don't think it actually gives better answers but it sure makes me grin every time

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#592

Post by [deleted] »

aanet wrote: post #127

I'm surprised nobody mentioned (including the author) the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect [1]... Just substitute "LLM" for "journalist" and there you have it. And to be honest, I have seen it, as I'm sure (almost) everyone has, who has demonstrated experience/expertise in their own fields, and correct the LLM's responses one time or another... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#%22Gell-Mann_...

[deleted]

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#593

Post by chrisjj »

krisoft wrote: post #191

I did a test a few months ago. A friend of mine wanted to develop what i understood to be a simple single page web app. But since she didn’t have any software engineering experience she asked me to help. Around that time everyone was talking about how literally anyone can develop software with LLMs i asked her if she could give it a try first, and if I could watch the attempt. I was fully expecting that writing the c…

> Because my friend didn’t have the vocabulary to ask the AI to write code.

Why did she even need that?

> “Please write to me an html page which does X, Y, Z.” But since she didn’t know the right terminology

No code there!

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#594

Post by chrisjj »

toasty228 wrote: post #417
krisoft wrote: post #191

I did a test a few months ago. A friend of mine wanted to develop what i understood to be a simple single page web app. But since she didn’t have any software engineering experience she asked me to help. Around that time everyone was talking about how literally anyone can develop software with LLMs i asked her if she could give it a try first, and if I could watch the attempt. I was fully expecting that writing the c…

You can see the same thing with restaurants generating their own menus/pictures. Some of them look absolutely terrible, visually ugly, way too information dense, the classic piss filter, etc. idk how they do it, even the most basic prompt I can come up with makes something 10x better, and when I put in my amateur photography knowledge/keywords in it gets pretty close to what I'd consider a good pre LLM quality menu.…

> people just don't care apparently.

This is the target user of these chatbots.

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#595

Post by chrisjj »

wongarsu wrote: post #368
roncesvalles wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We've seen plenty of examples of apps successfully vibe coded by non technical people, including apps making real revenue. Have we? Or is this just something that people say now, without citation?

Maybe people don't cite specific apps because they like their jobs, and outing apps as vibe-coded is still seen as negative I personally know of two completely vibe-coded large apps in my professional environment. One by a non-technical manager, made to solve his needs, then sold to customers. Initial development went along great, but by now velocity has greatly slowed down. Also took a lot of engineering hours (of a…

> Maybe people don't cite specific apps because they like their jobs, and outing apps as vibe-coded is still seen as negative

... or IDs apps as cr*p is still seen as negative.

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#596

Post by chrisjj »

bashtoni wrote: post #52

The short version I give to non-technical people who ask me about whether "AI will replace coding" is this: it accelerates you. You can get much further much more quickly. If you don't know where you're going or how to get there, or even if you're just not paying enough attention, it will get you very far in the wrong direction before you've realised.

... and worse, it will diminish your ability to realise.

Re: LLMs reward expertise

#597

Post by krisoft »

friendzis wrote: post #299
krisoft wrote: post #191

I did a test a few months ago. A friend of mine wanted to develop what i understood to be a simple single page web app. But since she didn’t have any software engineering experience she asked me to help. Around that time everyone was talking about how literally anyone can develop software with LLMs i asked her if she could give it a try first, and if I could watch the attempt. I was fully expecting that writing the c…

> They didn’t even get to that point. Because my friend didn’t have the vocabulary to ask the AI to write code. What harness did you use? In e.g. claude, there are two modes: 1. Spit out code 2. Draft a plan, ask questions, GOTO 1 You literally have to go out of your way to get it NOT to write code. I keep mine on a tight-ish leash because it modify code way too happily even when there's no intention or instruction t…

> What harness did you use?

I let her do all of it without influencing her choices. She choose the web interface of ChatGPT because she already had an account and that's the tool she was familiar with.

While I agree with you it is not an optimal choice, web chatgpt can solve the problem. I just asked it now to do it (in my own words) and it spit out the code in one go.

Post reply on HN