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Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

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Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#71

Post by Timwi »

fzeroracer wrote: post #14
dcc wrote: post #7

One important distinction is that the strength of LLMs isn't just in storing or retrieving knowledge like Wikipedia, it’s in comprehension. LLMs will return faulty or imprecise information at times, but what they can do is understand vague or poorly formed questions and help guide a user toward an answer. They can explain complex ideas in simpler terms, adapt responses based on the user's level of understanding, and…

In a 'rebooting society' doomsday scenario you're assuming that our language and understanding would persist. An LLM would essentially be a blackbox that you cannot understand or decipher, and would be doubly prone to hallucinations and issues when interacting with it using a language it was not trained on. Wikipedia is something you could gradually untangle, especially if the downloaded version also contained associ…

You'd have to go many generations after the doomsday before language evolves enough for that to be a problem.

Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#72

Post by Timwi »

redserk wrote: post #51
ranger_danger wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LLMs will return faulty or imprecise information at times To be fair, so do humans and wikipedia.

It appears there's an expectation many non-tech people have that humans can be incorrect but refuse to hold LLMs to the same standard, despite warnings.

I'm not surprised, given the depiction of artificial intelligence in science fiction. Characters like Data in TNG, Number 5 in Short Circuit, etc., are invariably depicted as having perfect memory, infallible logic, super speed of information processing, etc. Real-life AI has turned out very differently, but anyone who isn't exposed to it full time, but was exposed to some of those works of science fiction, will reasonably make the assumptions promulgated by the science fiction.

Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#73

Post by entropie »

I played around with a orin jetson nano super (a nvidia raspberry with gpu) and right now its basicially an open-webui with ollama and a bunch of models.

Its awesome actually. Its reasonably fast with GPU support with gemma3:4b but I can use bigger models when time is not a factor.

i've actually thought about how crazy that is, especially if there's no internet access for some reason. Not tested yet, but there seems to be an adapter cable to run it directly from a PD powerbank. I have to try.

Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#75

Post by jack_pp »

progval wrote: post #9
dcc wrote: post #7

One important distinction is that the strength of LLMs isn't just in storing or retrieving knowledge like Wikipedia, it’s in comprehension. LLMs will return faulty or imprecise information at times, but what they can do is understand vague or poorly formed questions and help guide a user toward an answer. They can explain complex ideas in simpler terms, adapt responses based on the user's level of understanding, and…

An unreliable computer treated as a god by a pre-information-age society sounds like a Star Trek episode.

Remember the first time you touched a computer, the first game you ever played or the first little script you wrote that did something useful.

I imagine this is how a lot of people feel when using LLM's especially now that it's new.

It is the most incredible technology ever created by this point in our history imo and the cynicism on HN is astounding to me.

Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#76

Post by rendx »

gonzobonzo wrote: post #35
dcc wrote: post #7

One important distinction is that the strength of LLMs isn't just in storing or retrieving knowledge like Wikipedia, it’s in comprehension. LLMs will return faulty or imprecise information at times, but what they can do is understand vague or poorly formed questions and help guide a user toward an answer. They can explain complex ideas in simpler terms, adapt responses based on the user's level of understanding, and…

Indeed. Ideally, you don't want to trust other people's summaries of sources, but you want to look at the sources yourself, often with a critical eye. This is one of the things that everyone gets taught in school, everyone's says they agree with, and then just about no one does (and at times, people will outright disparage the idea). Once out of school, tertiary sources get treated as if they're completely reliable.…

> There have been some Wikipedia articles I've come across that have been so unreliable that people who didn't look at other sources would have been greatly mislead.

I would highly appreciate if you were to leave a comment e.g. on the talk page of such articles. Thanks!

Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#77

Post by Timwi »

meander_water wrote: post #41

One thing to note is that the quality of LLM output is related to the quality and depth of the input prompt. If you don't know what to ask (likely in the apocalypse scenario), then that info is locked away in the weights. On the other hand, with Wikipedia, you can just read and search everything.

Why do you assume it's easier to know what article(s) to read than what question to ask?

Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#78

Post by zzzeek »

jack_pp wrote: post #75
progval wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An unreliable computer treated as a god by a pre-information-age society sounds like a Star Trek episode.

Remember the first time you touched a computer, the first game you ever played or the first little script you wrote that did something useful. I imagine this is how a lot of people feel when using LLM's especially now that it's new. It is the most incredible technology ever created by this point in our history imo and the cynicism on HN is astounding to me.

You might want to read about a technology called "farming". Pretty sure as far as transformative incredible technologies, the ability for humans to create nourishment at global scale blows the pants off the text / image imitation machine

Re: Local LLMs versus offline Wikipedia

#79

Post by Terr_ »

hannofcart wrote: post #65

Since there's a lot of shade being thrown about imprecise information that LLMs can generate, an ideal doomsday information query database should be constructed as an LLM + file archive. 1. LLM understands the vague query from human, connects necessary dots, and gives user an overview, and furnishes them with a list of topic names/local file links to actual Wikipedia articles 2. User can then go on to read the precis…

Even as a grouchy pessimist, one of the places I think LLMs could shine is as a tool to help translate prose into search-terms... Not as an intermediary though, but an encouraging tutor off to the side, something a regular user will eventually surpass.
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