81–90 of 106 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, we’re just going in circles now. I just said LLMs cite what they find so it’s not going to be the wrong answer if you do your due diligence.
Do extra work in step 2 because you got lazy in step 1 is not my idea of efficient or complete.
> asked LLMs to compile list of 10-20 writers considered canon in each decade since 1800, then identify all their notable works and years of publication. After some iterations with coding agents I got over 2,000 works by 200 authors. Wait, so the source data is just LLM hallucinations? It makes sense to use an LLM to build the data collection, but not to build your source data.
This is a disappointing statistical modelling technique. The author asked LLMs to produce lists of data which are readily available on the likes of wikipedia. Author date of birth, list of publications, and publication release date are all fairly easy to get hold of. They just need formatted appropriately. The LLMs produced a few false positives, and missed out some prominent works. I get that this is just the author…
I think this is pretty common across different creative forms albeit with different age ranges but constrained at the higher end. So the greatest physics, maths, poetry and pop music are done by people in their 20s. Literature (esp novels) seems to occupy an older range, perhaps 30s to 50s. Perhaps classical music and philosophy also? I don't know about the visual arts. I interpret it as the former requiring the crea…
I think a lot is driven by environmental rather than genetic factors. For instance the article mentions that both The Road, and No Country for Old Men were written when Cormack was in his 70s. But very few people in their 70s are even trying to write, let alone get published. I think there's something similar in chess where players tend to peak around their mid to late 30s. But a major issue there is that that's also…
Not everyone survives to write to an old age.
Old people have health problems that can prevent them from work, like going blind.
People who write a great work at an old age will not have the time and energy to do all the non-writing parts of making the great work seen by readers - which has always been a big part of writing. Like getting their book in bookstores, advertising it, etc.
If someone is a very talented writer they are likely to write great stuff before they get old and may spend their old age preening and working on their legacy instead of new works. They will already know they're a great writer, so the drive to make another great work is lessened.
If someone is already an accomplished writer more of their time will be taken up with invitations to speak, being on award panels, doing interviews, writing introductions.
There is less financial incentive to write a great work when you're very old.
It is harder to be part of a literary salon full of smart people that help you grow your creativity when you're very old.
As people grow older they become more alienated from the zeitgeist and are better at connecting with their own generation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s the point of getting the wrong answer quickly? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47587662
Well, we’re just going in circles now. I just said LLMs cite what they find so it’s not going to be the wrong answer if you do your due diligence.
Of course it’s not the kind of question you can get an objectively correct answer for, but you could come up with the correct answer for a given methodology.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do extra work in step 2 because you got lazy in step 1 is not my idea of efficient or complete.
that depends how much more quickly and efficiently you can do the extra work in step 2 than in step 1.
You can only correct for missing entries by doing the same work you’d need to start from scratch. But after that you now have a second list to consider.
I think this is pretty common across different creative forms albeit with different age ranges but constrained at the higher end. So the greatest physics, maths, poetry and pop music are done by people in their 20s. Literature (esp novels) seems to occupy an older range, perhaps 30s to 50s. Perhaps classical music and philosophy also? I don't know about the visual arts. I interpret it as the former requiring the crea…
I think a lot is driven by environmental rather than genetic factors. For instance the article mentions that both The Road, and No Country for Old Men were written when Cormack was in his 70s. But very few people in their 70s are even trying to write, let alone get published. I think there's something similar in chess where players tend to peak around their mid to late 30s. But a major issue there is that that's also…
But on the other hand, the world is very complicated and you can't know much in your 20s. I'm today a much better programmer than 10 years ago, even with slightly less brains. You are not going to write an impactfull novel without live experience.
How that declines varies and some people still have most cognitive capabilities in their 70s.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a lot is driven by environmental rather than genetic factors. For instance the article mentions that both The Road, and No Country for Old Men were written when Cormack was in his 70s. But very few people in their 70s are even trying to write, let alone get published. I think there's something similar in chess where players tend to peak around their mid to late 30s. But a major issue there is that that's also…
100% true about chess but I think there's more nuance to it. In 6th grade, I had gone to a chess coach who were a friend of my father (technically my father knew his father very well). It was my birthday/a day close to it IIRC and I wanted to learn chess. He was an international-master (or close to it) /National-master (I think he just had one norm less) and he told me about his story and everything, but he said that…
He didn't compete for the world champion becaue he didn't want to put in the effort for the preparation (again). Also it would have been boring if he played it because he would have won again.
He intentionally starts with subobtimal openings at major turnaments because of boredom and still wins.
Beyond the data science interest, isn't this sort of charting powered by the "my time's running out and I still haven't left my mark in history" intrusive thought? Purely from a fitting perspective I'd wager the correlation is close to zero, because "major works" will be different in a century, and again changed in two. Shakespeare was not very popular in the 17th per wikipedia. As George Orwell put it, it's much eas…