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I'm Not Consulting an LLM

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Re: I'm Not Consulting an LLM

#71

Post by readthenotes1 »

carrychains wrote: post #59

Same can be said of search engines, encyclopedias, or wikis compared to seeking out books, journals, and other source material. If you don't sit there for 8 hours in a library to find the same information on your own, you've missed out on the experience. It's a standard Luddite's argument. Tools of any kind that enhance efficiency have always actualized lazy outcomes. It has always been the human responsibility to, n…

I have a relative who claims, because hen is dyslexic, that hen thinks better and deeper than any normal person due to the inability to learn by reading since that is so, to the point where hen claims not to be subject to any of the well-known cognitive biases.

Re: I'm Not Consulting an LLM

#72

Post by codexetreme »

I personally consult LLMs over technical stuff. But for the more nuanced "human" side of things, I feel it gives you answers from both sides

For instance, I wanted to know if it's better to setup a call with a client in a coffee shop over their office. Almost all LLMs will give you whatever answer you want based on how much stress you put on one particular answer.

I'm not saying that traditional search engines will show you only one sided results, but you'll see reddit threads that will have a bit of conversation before arriving at some conclusion. You'd read it and go hmm this question had XYZ setup and they picked the coffee shop as a great place. My own situation is perhaps (for sake of argument) not XYZ, so it's better to have the meeting in the client office.

This is a community driven decision where I have certain basis if I want to revisit my decision.

With an llm I find that it will happily just give you one of the two options and keep switching in the middle if you ask it to. That's what makes me a bit a skeptical.

With technical stuff, there are direct solutions that fit your usecase and you can just use it and move on.

Re: I'm Not Consulting an LLM

#73

Post by em-bee »

carrychains wrote: post #59

Same can be said of search engines, encyclopedias, or wikis compared to seeking out books, journals, and other source material. If you don't sit there for 8 hours in a library to find the same information on your own, you've missed out on the experience. It's a standard Luddite's argument. Tools of any kind that enhance efficiency have always actualized lazy outcomes. It has always been the human responsibility to, n…

but that is being addressed. there is a difference between looking at 10 search results vs clicking "i am feeling lucky". asking an LLM always just gives you one answer without an opportunity to research and compare multiple possible answers.

a search engine always gives multiple results and it is on me to read and compare. i usually look at the first half a dozen or so results.

a well written wikipedia article will represent multiple views and critical opinions if there are any. but if there aren't then you may want to expand your search. same goes for other encyclopedias or articles you are reading.

the problem, again, is that an LLM answer does not have the quality of a well written article you may find elsewhere. that may change in the future, but until then i find LLMs are a waste of time for me.

Re: I'm Not Consulting an LLM

#74

Post by em-bee »

po1nt wrote: post #32

I don't think the argument is correct. Reasoning LLM will check itself and search multiple sources. It's essentially doing the same mental process as human would. Also consulting multiple LLMs completely breaks this argument.

but the point is that the metal process should be done by yourself. it is the difference between finding the answer myself or asking my classmate to just share his answer with me. in the latter case i am not learning what my classmate learned.

Re: I'm Not Consulting an LLM

#75

Post by Nursie »

jatari wrote: post #15
Nursie wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it could give out bad information and make everything worse because a subset of people seem to think LLMs are infallible or gods rather than aggregates of the knowledge they’ve consumed.

Do you really think e.g Opus 4.6 is less reliable than the average facebook/x post (which is where most people get their news from today)? People already just blindly believe whatever is put in front of them by the algorithm gods. Even the "@Grok is this real" spam on every X post is an improvement.

I think that neither is especially reliable, but that putting LLMs on some sort of pedestal as 'better' for information lookup here is a bad plan.

Re: I'm Not Consulting an LLM

#76

Post by therealdrag0 »

carlosjobim wrote: post #61
mark_l_watson wrote: post #2

I understand the author’s sentiment but I would like to give a counter example: I like to read philosophy and after I read a passage and think about it, I find it useful to copy the passage into a decent model and ask for its interpretation, or if it is something old ask about word choice or meaning. I realize that I may not be getting perfect information, but LLM output gives me ideas that are a combination of live…

Why would you even read philosophy if you're then consulting a third party for interpretation? That is the definition of meaningless. That is like listening to music and asking somebody if you liked a song.

Philosophy is often considered an activity of engagement with others in thought and discussion. I don’t see why an LLM can’t play a role there.

Re: I'm Not Consulting an LLM

#77

Post by ben_w »

simianwords wrote: post #65
simonw wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean yeah, it's Grok. They had to work really hard to get their preferred levels of political bias in there.

Any examples of political bias?

Apart from calling itself "Mecha Hitler" and that time it made every conversation be about "white genocide" in South Africa?

There's also Grokipedia, supposedly make by Grok, where I'd point to section 3.6 ("Controversial topics"): https://arxiv.org/html/2511.09685v1

Re: I'm Not Consulting an LLM

#78

Post by coatmatter »

kator wrote: post #50

The "calculator ruined the world" argument was actually studied to death once the panic subsided. Large meta-analyses of 50 years of data show it was mostly a non-problem. Students using calculators generally developed better attitudes toward math and attempted more complex problems because the mechanical drudgery was gone. The only real "catch" researchers found was timing. If you introduce them before a kid has "au…

You're using the motte-and-bailey fallacy. Pocket and scientific calculators have never caused anywhere near as much grief as current LLMs do as a loss-leader for near-trillion dollar corporations that are primarily responsible for artificially keeping the US economy afloat (at least prior to the latest war/not-war effort).

Calculators have never led to anything like AI-induced psychosis: https://theconversation.com/ai-induced-psychosis-the-danger-...

That's merely one example of a long list of very real unresolved problems. It's not a "pretty clean parallel" in the slightest.

Re: I'm Not Consulting an LLM

#79

Post by coatmatter »

throwaway0665 wrote: post #16
xyzal wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you can't find a way to make today's tech du jour useful for you, you are the problem". Hmmmmm.

This tech isn't going away anytime soon. It might become prohibitively expensive for individuals but it's here to stay. It's worth trying to find a use for it while it's cheap.

"Motor vehicles aren't going away any time soon. It might become prohibitively expensive for some individuals but they're here to stay. It's worth trying to get into car ownership early despite your bicycle being much cheaper, healthier, and better for your local community."

Re: I'm Not Consulting an LLM

#80

Post by pod_krad »

em-bee wrote: post #73
carrychains wrote: post #59

Same can be said of search engines, encyclopedias, or wikis compared to seeking out books, journals, and other source material. If you don't sit there for 8 hours in a library to find the same information on your own, you've missed out on the experience. It's a standard Luddite's argument. Tools of any kind that enhance efficiency have always actualized lazy outcomes. It has always been the human responsibility to, n…

but that is being addressed. there is a difference between looking at 10 search results vs clicking "i am feeling lucky". asking an LLM always just gives you one answer without an opportunity to research and compare multiple possible answers. a search engine always gives multiple results and it is on me to read and compare. i usually look at the first half a dozen or so results. a well written wikipedia article will…

>a search engine always gives multiple results and it is on me to read and compare. i usually look at the first half a dozen or so results

Why do you think they're the best? You just trust the search engine, right?

>the problem, again, is that an LLM answer does not have the quality of a well written article you may find elsewhere

When I ask LLM about something, it usually returns several URLs usually, if there are different opinions.

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