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Study mode

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Re: Study mode

#711

Post by diggan »

wodenokoto wrote: post #97

I'm currently learning Janet and using ChatGPT as my tutor is absolutely awful. "So what is the difference between local and var if they are both local and not global variables (as you told me earlier)?" "Great question, and now you are really getting to the core of it, ... " continues to hallucinate. It's a great tutor for things it knows, but it really needs to learn its own limits

> I'm currently learning Janet and using ChatGPT as my tutor is absolutely awful

Yeah, slightly outside of "mainstream" technologies tend to have lots of hallucinated material. The only thing I've found to work is O3 + "Search" enabled for those cases, tends to help a lot, what models and tools are/were you using?

For reference, this is what O3 + Search + My custom prompt gets as a result, which seems good and informative: https://chatgpt.com/share/688a0134-0f5c-8001-815d-b18c92875a...

Another note, as it seems like your example is part of a longer conversation, try to restart the conversation instead of adding more messages when something is wrong. All models I've tried (even Pro-mode on ChatGPT) degrades quickly past the first message, like a lot. Only workaround to that issue is restarting the conversation with new context rather than continuing with a context that contains errors.

Re: Study mode

#712

Post by paradite »

kobenni wrote: post #708
jacobedawson wrote: post #379

An underrated quality of LLMs as study partner is that you can ask "stupid" questions without fear of embarrassment. Adding in a mode that doesn't just dump an answer but works to take you through the material step-by-step is magical. A tireless, capable, well-versed assistant on call 24/7 is an autodidact's dream. I'm puzzled (but not surprised) by the standard HN resistance & skepticism. Learning something online 5…

In my experience asking questions to Claude, the amount of incorrect information it gives is on a completely different scale in comparison to traditional sources. And the information often sounds completely plausible too. When using a text book, I would usually not Google every single piece of new information to verify it independently, but with Claude, doing that is absolutely necessary. At this point I only use Cla…

What kind of questions / domains were you encountering false information on?

Re: Study mode

#713

Post by diggan »

amelius wrote: post #698
jama211 wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just text though right? Just perform step 1, if you have any issues say “I had this issue at step 1”. Also you can ask it to give one step at a time.

Yes, I have to tell it a lot of things. Like that I use Linux (Ubuntu version also), that I want to use emacs and not nano, etc. It would be nice if I could say it once and for all. One problem with LLMs giving so many steps at once is that the first step scrolls from the screen and I have to stop the LLM, scroll back and find the first step. The UX could be much improved here (with little effort, I believe).

> Yes, I have to tell it a lot of things. Like that I use Linux (Ubuntu version also), that I want to use emacs and not nano, etc. It would be nice if I could say it once and for all.

You can add this to the system prompt, or "customize prompt" or whatever the service/runner calls it. Basically instructions you want it to always follow. I have my hardware described there, what tools I commonly use and so on, so asking "How do I see running processes?" for example would already assume I'm using Arch Linux and so on.

Re: Study mode

#714

Post by Zambyte »

quietthrow wrote: post #507
jacobedawson wrote: post #379

An underrated quality of LLMs as study partner is that you can ask "stupid" questions without fear of embarrassment. Adding in a mode that doesn't just dump an answer but works to take you through the material step-by-step is magical. A tireless, capable, well-versed assistant on call 24/7 is an autodidact's dream. I'm puzzled (but not surprised) by the standard HN resistance & skepticism. Learning something online 5…

I agree with all that you say. It’s an incredible time indeed. Just one thing I can’t wrap my mind around is privacy. We all seem to be asking sometimes stupid and some times incredibly personal questions to these llms. Questions that we may not even speak out loud from embarrassment or shame or other such emotions to even our closest people. How are these companies using our data ? More importantly what are you all…

People often bring up the incredible efficiency improvements of LLMs over the last few years, but I don't think people do a really good job of putting it into perspective just how much more efficient they have gotten. I have a machine in my home with a single RX 7900 XTX in it. On that machine, I am able to run language models that blow GPT-3.5 Turbo out of the water in terms of quality, knowledge, and even speed! That is crazy to think about when you consider how large and capable that model was.

I can often get away with just using models locally in contexts that I care about privacy. Sometimes I will use more capable models through APIs to generate richer prompts than I could write myself to be able to better guide local models too.

Re: Study mode

#715

Post by diggan »

devmor wrote: post #161
toisanji wrote: post #25

I truly believe AI will change all of education for the better, but of course it can also hinder learning if used improperly. Those who want to genuinely learn will learn while those looking for shortcuts will cause more harm to themselves. I just did a show HN today about something semi related. I made A deep research assistant for families. Children can ask questions to explain difficult concepts and for parents to…

Do you genuinely have any non-anecdotal reason to believe that AI will improve education, or is it just hope? I ask because every serious study on using modern generative AI tools tends to conclude fairly immediate and measurable deleterious effects on cognitive ability.

> I ask because every serious study on using modern generative AI tools

There are a lot of studies, and I can't say I've read all of them, but the ones I have read, there hasn't been much focus on how the participants used the LLM to learn. My guess is that it has a lot of effect on the end results. Someone just asking for the answer and then thinking "Lets remember this" will have very different results than someone who does the Socratic method of learning together with a LLM, as just one example.

Re: Study mode

#716

Post by diggan »

bloomca wrote: post #47
cma256 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's better than a professor in some respects. A professor can teach me about parser combinators but they probably can't teach me about a specific parser combinator library. There's a lot of specificity that AI can give over human instruction however it still suffers from lack of rigor and true understanding. If you follow well-trod paths its better but that negates the benefit. The future is bright for education tho…

I am not really sure how bright the future is. Sure, for some people it will be insanely good: you can go for as stupid questions as you need without feeling judgement, you can go deeper in specific topics, discuss certain things, skip some easy parts, etc. But we are talking about averages. In the past we thought that the collective human knowledge available via the Internet will allow everyone to learn. I think it…

> In the past we thought that the collective human knowledge available via the Internet will allow everyone to learn. I think it is fair to say that it didn't change much in the grand scheme of things.

Just an anecdote of course, but for me having access to the internet changed my life. I found a community I couldn't find locally (programming) as I'm from a rural place, and most of my employments since then have, in one way or another, come from people finding me on the internet. I'm surely not the only one who managed to climb the class ladder mostly because of the internet.

Re: Study mode

#717

Post by djeastm »

jlebar wrote: post #592
teiferer wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Learning something online 5 years ago often involved trawling incorrect, outdated or hostile content and attempting to piece together mental models without the chance to receive immediate feedback on intuition or ask follow up questions. That trained and sharpened invaluable skills involving critical thinking and grit.

> [Trawling around online for information] trained and sharpened invaluable skills involving critical thinking and grit. Here's what Socrates had to say about the invention of writing. > "For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will disc…

>Here's what Socrates had to say about the invention of writing.

I think you mean to say, "Here's what Plato wrote down that Socrates said"...

Re: Study mode

#718

Post by dotancohen »

friendzis wrote: post #627
filoleg wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How are you supposed to spot errors if you don't know the material? By noticing that something is not adding up at a certain point. If you rely on an incorrect answer, further material will clash with it eventually one way or another in a lot of areas, as things are typically built one on top of another (assuming we are talking more about math/cs/sciences/music theory/etc., and not something like history). At that…

It absolutely does not work that way. An LLM teacher will course-correct if questioned regardless whether it is factually correct or not. An LLM, by design, does not, in any capacity whatsoever have a concept of factual correctness.

  > An LLM, by design, does not, in any capacity whatsoever have a concept of factual correctness.
That is what the RAG is for. Are there any commercial LLMs not sitting behind RAGs?

Re: Study mode

#719

Post by [deleted] »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #587
romaniitedomum wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Learning something online 5 years ago often involved trawling incorrect, outdated or hostile content and attempting to piece together mental models without the chance to receive immediate feedback on intuition or ask follow up questions. This is leaps and bounds ahead of that experience. But now, you're wondering if the answer the AI gave you is correct or something it hallucinated. Every time I find myself putting…

> for the low-low cost of $EYEWATERINGSUM per month. This part is the 2nd (or maybe 3rd) most annoying one to me. Did we learn absolutely nothing from the last few years of enshittification? Or Netflix? Do we want to run into a crisis in the 2030's where billionaires hold knowledge itself hostage as they jack up costs? Regardless of your stance, I'm surprised how little people are bringing this up.

[deleted]

Re: Study mode

#720

Post by [deleted] »

kobenni wrote: post #708
jacobedawson wrote: post #379

An underrated quality of LLMs as study partner is that you can ask "stupid" questions without fear of embarrassment. Adding in a mode that doesn't just dump an answer but works to take you through the material step-by-step is magical. A tireless, capable, well-versed assistant on call 24/7 is an autodidact's dream. I'm puzzled (but not surprised) by the standard HN resistance & skepticism. Learning something online 5…

In my experience asking questions to Claude, the amount of incorrect information it gives is on a completely different scale in comparison to traditional sources. And the information often sounds completely plausible too. When using a text book, I would usually not Google every single piece of new information to verify it independently, but with Claude, doing that is absolutely necessary. At this point I only use Cla…

[deleted]
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