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I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

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Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#691

Post by sevensor »

lnenad wrote: post #565
gloosx wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem Sabine tries to communicate is that reality is different from what the cash-heads behind main commercial models are trying to portray. They push the narrative that they’ve created something akin to human cognition, when in reality, they’ve just optimised prediction algorithms on an unprecedented scale. They are trying to say that they created Intelligence, which is the ability to acquire and apply knowled…

> They push the narrative that they’ve created something akin to human cognition This is your interpretation of what these companies are saying. I'd love to see if some company specifically anything like that? Out of the last 100 years how many inventions have been made that could make any human awe like llms do right now? How many things from today when brought back into 2010 would make the person using it make it f…

> This is your interpretation of what these companies are saying. I'd love to see if some company specifically anything like that?

What is the layman to make of the claim that we now have “reasoning” models? Certainly sounds like a claim of human-like cognition, even though the reality is different.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#692

Post by mdp2021 »

f6v wrote: post #623
somenameforme wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mostly because of how they were initially marketed. In an effort to drive hype 'we' were promised the world. Remember the "leaks" from Google about an engineer trying to get the word out that they had created a sentient intelligence? In reality Bard, let alone whatever early version he was using, is about as sentient as my left asscheek. OpenAI did similar things by focusing to the point of absurdity on 'safety'…

> Remember the "leaks" from Google about an engineer trying to get the word out that they had created a sentient intelligence? No, first time I hear about it. I guess the secret to happiness is not following leaks. I had very low expectations before trying LLMs and I’m extremely impressed now.

> """happiness"""

Not following leaks, or just the news, not living in the real world, not caring of the consequences of reality: anybody can think he's """happy""" with psychedelia and with just living in private world. But it is the same kind of "happy" that comes with "just smile".

If you did not get information that there are severe pitfalls - which is by the way so unrelated to the "it's sentient thing", as we are talking about the faults in the products, not the faults in human fools -, you are supposed to see them from your own judgement.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#693

Post by brookst »

gloosx wrote: post #545
gilbetron wrote: post #109

I get so confused on this. I play around, test, and mess with LLMs all the time and they are miraculous. Just amazing, doing things we dreamed about for decades. I mean, I can ask for obscure things with subtle nuance where I misspell words and mess up my question and it figures it out. It talks to me like a person. It generates really cool images. It helps me write code. And just tons of other stuff that astounds me…

The problem Sabine tries to communicate is that reality is different from what the cash-heads behind main commercial models are trying to portray. They push the narrative that they’ve created something akin to human cognition, when in reality, they’ve just optimised prediction algorithms on an unprecedented scale. They are trying to say that they created Intelligence, which is the ability to acquire and apply knowled…

You lay the rhetoric on so thick (“cash heads”, “pushing the narrative”, “corporate overlords”, “profit-making abomination”) that it’s hard to understand your actual claim.

Are you trying to say that LLMs are useful now but you think that will stop being the case at some point in the future?

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#694

Post by brookst »

sevensor wrote: post #691
lnenad wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They push the narrative that they’ve created something akin to human cognition This is your interpretation of what these companies are saying. I'd love to see if some company specifically anything like that? Out of the last 100 years how many inventions have been made that could make any human awe like llms do right now? How many things from today when brought back into 2010 would make the person using it make it f…

> This is your interpretation of what these companies are saying. I'd love to see if some company specifically anything like that? What is the layman to make of the claim that we now have “reasoning” models? Certainly sounds like a claim of human-like cognition, even though the reality is different.

Studies have shown that corvids are capable of reasoning. Does that sound like a claim of human level cognition?

I think you’re going too far in imagining what one group of people will make of what another group of people is saying, without actually putting yourself in either group.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#695

Post by brookst »

hansmayer wrote: post #592
lnenad wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They push the narrative that they’ve created something akin to human cognition This is your interpretation of what these companies are saying. I'd love to see if some company specifically anything like that? Out of the last 100 years how many inventions have been made that could make any human awe like llms do right now? How many things from today when brought back into 2010 would make the person using it make it f…

How about Sam Altman literally saying on twitter "We know how to build AGI now"? That close enough?

“We know how to build something” is pretty different from “our in-market products are something”

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#696

Post by brookst »

noufalibrahim wrote: post #650
nottorp wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it works for you... I use LLMs. They're somewhat useful if you're on a non niche problem. They're also useful instead of search engines, but that's because search has been entshittified more than because a LLM is better. However 90% of the marketing material about them is simply disgusting. The bigwigs sound like they're spreading a new religion, and most enthusiasts sound like they're new converts to some sect. I…

I completely agree about the marketing material. I'm not sure about 90% but that's not something I have a strong opinion on. The stream from the bigwigs is the same song being played in a different tune and I'm inoculated to it. I'm not marketing it. I'm not a marketer. I'm a developer trying to create an informed opinion on its utility and the marketing speak you criticize is far away from the truth. The problem is…

Exactly. It’s so strange to read so many comments that boil down to “because some marketing people are over-promising, I will retaliate by choosing to believe false things”

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#697

Post by mdp2021 »

brookst wrote: post #685
jibal wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remember the "leaks" from Google about an engineer trying to get the word out that they had created a sentient intelligence? That's not what happened. Google stomped hard on Lemoine, saying clearly that he was wrong about LaMDA being sentient ... and then they fired him for leaking the transcripts. Your whole argument here is based on false information and faulty logic.

Which is pretty ironic in a thread littered with people asserting LLMs are useless because they can hallucinate and create illogical outputs.

So in your reading people who consider the weakness of LLMs a definite problem should call humans generally "adequate".

Were people capable to lift concrete pillars, cranes would not be sought.

Edit: #@!! snipers. Speak up.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#699

Post by lnenad »

re-thc wrote: post #620
lnenad wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They push the narrative that they’ve created something akin to human cognition This is your interpretation of what these companies are saying. I'd love to see if some company specifically anything like that? Out of the last 100 years how many inventions have been made that could make any human awe like llms do right now? How many things from today when brought back into 2010 would make the person using it make it f…

> Out of the last 100 years how many inventions have been made that could make any human awe like llms do right now? Lots e.g. vacuum cleaners. > But at no point in history could you talk to your phone You could always "talk" to your phone just like you could "talk" to a parrot or a dog. What does that even mean? If we're talking about LLMs, I still haven't been able to have a real conversation with 1. There's too mu…

Sure, a vacuum cleaner is the same.

> If we're talking about LLMs, I still haven't been able to have a real conversation with 1. There's too much of a lag to feel like a conversation and often doesn't reply with anything related.

I don't believe this one bit. But keep on trucking.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#700

Post by brookst »

topaz0 wrote: post #629
snitty wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks really over index when an LLM is very good for their use case. And most of the folks here are coders, at which they're already good and getting better. For some tasks they're still next to useless, and people who do those tasks understandably don't get the hype. Tell a lab biologist or chemist to use an LLM to help them with their work and they'll get very little useful out of it. Ask an attorney to use it and…

Honestly it's worse than this. A good lab biologist/chemist will try to use it, understand that it's useless, and stop using it. A bad lab biologist/chemist will try to use it, think that it's useful, and then it will make them useless by giving them wrong information. So it's not just that people over-index when it is useful, they also over-index when it's actively harmful but they think it's useful.

You think good biologists never need to summarize work into digestible language, or fill out multiple huge, redundant grant applications with the same info, or reformat data, or check that a writeup accurate reflects data?

I’m not a biologist (good or bad) but the scientists I know (who I think are good) often complain that most of the work is drudgery unrelated to the science they love.

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