4 ms·

People are justifiably excited about these language tools, but we're getting tired of this answer because it's not a good answer: "Use GPT-4! Some of the answer

People are justifiably excited about these language tools, but we're getting tired of this answer because it's not a good answer: "Use GPT-4! Some of the answers aren't that great, but it's at least a starting point." That's like if you asked how to sort a list and remove duplicates, and the answer was to import it into a spreadsheet program and follow these steps instead of just "sort | uniq". It's suggesting a general-purpose tool to do a specific job maybe kinda acceptably instead of suggesting the right tool for the job. It reminds me of the microwave cookery books that came out after consumer microwaves became available: there are things a microwave is good at, but those books used it for everything, just like we're using GPT-4 today. We'll calm down eventually.

thelastparadise 3y ago
> Is there an online tool/piece of code that can find words like this in a string? ...but he's using a language model for a language task.
- JasonFruit 3y ago
  Not all language tasks, even, are going to be best handled by these models.
  - heyoni 3y ago
    But if there isn’t a better one then this isn’t the microwave analogy you think it is
yyyk 3y ago
>That's like if you asked how to sort a list and remove duplicates, and the answer was to import it into a spreadsheet program and follow these steps instead of just "sort | uniq". That's exactly how many Windows office users do it, they paste a list into Excel and use it to remove duplicates. There are alternatives even on Windows, but It's must easier for them to use a single general-purpose graphical tool (and let's not get started with the abominations VLOOKUP is used for). I used to look down on that but then I realized that using a graphical program for list manipulation is kinda cool and that this program is rather capable, and could create combinations that are rather difficult to do with the more specialized tools. I still use these specialized tools (I'm used to them, and I can do some stuff they can't easily do in Excel).
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Yeah, I used to look down on that kind of things too, and a decade later, I find myself doing those very things. Yes, I know sort | uniq. I even have a couple Linux shells open on my Windows work system. But I can't for the life of me remember the magic flags, so I'll either paste the list to Emacs and M-x sort-lines + M-x delete-duplicate-lines, or paste it to Excel and do it there, or do something even more cheesy - whatever is least likely to break my flow. There are tools more or less optimized for any specific job, but the best tool for the job is the one you have handy, and are experienced in using. I too increasingly often find myself using GPT-4 for random, ad-hoc tasks. They may or may not be better tools out there. I may even have some installed. But none of them beat being able to just describe what you want, paste some data, and get the results out few seconds later.
IanCal 3y ago
> but we're getting tired of this answer because it's not a good answer: "Use GPT-4! Some of the answers aren't that great, but it's at least a starting point." Some of the answers are straight up usable, others if you prefer you can go from there because this a creative language task. And there isn't really a specific tool for this, is there? It's nothing like your comparison to a very well specified problem. "Identify what this thing does, and come up with a title that also contains a word, and the word is related to the topic" is not the same as sort|uniq Vs a spreadsheet.
- adrianmonk 3y ago
  There are two issues here. (1) The problem is not clearly defined. Does the word need to be thematically related to the topic? (As far as I can tell, "Donut" isn't thematically related to document understanding.) Maybe you could say it's a nice, optional bonus if it's related. (2) The best solution would be good at two things: (A) satisfying constraints and (B) creativity. ChatGPT is unlikely to be good at A, and a non-AI algorithm that just finds valid words can't do B. Regarding #1, if people don't all have the same idea of the problem, they're not going to agree on the solution. Regarding #2, maybe a combined solution would be best. Generate all allowable words, then feed them to ChatGPT and have it say which ones are thematically good.
  - IanCal 3y ago
    Tbh I think gpt4 shines at this. People's requirements will be different, in weird ways. Duckdb things are all duck related. Rust is related to crabs. Your project may all be sweets related. It might be serious or fun. Maybe you want a name easy to draw. These are hard to encode. Instead I just asked "Make them more fun, and related to literary characters", then Muppets and awkward ones based on Harry potter which it described as "certainly a unique request". It's faster than getting a word list related to that. And they are frankly great - better than I'd come up with given much longer. https://chat.openai.com/share/d9a31442-96e5-4a18-92d9-d217c7304803 https://chat.openai.com/share/d9a31442-96e5-4a18-92d9-d217c7... This problem is great for llms. It's language, works well with a back and forth discussing good and bad options, has no well defined output requirements but is easy to explain to a person, has a human in the loop and has almost zero cost if it's wrong. > QUIXOTE: Quality Unstructured Information Extraction and Organization Through End-to-end transformer

thelastparadise 3y ago

> Is there an online tool/piece of code that can find words like this in a string? ...but he's using a language model for a language task.

JasonFruit 3y ago
Not all language tasks, even, are going to be best handled by these models.
- heyoni 3y ago
  But if there isn’t a better one then this isn’t the microwave analogy you think it is

yyyk 3y ago

>That's like if you asked how to sort a list and remove duplicates, and the answer was to import it into a spreadsheet program and follow these steps instead of just "sort | uniq". That's exactly how many Windows office users do it, they paste a list into Excel and use it to remove duplicates. There are alternatives even on Windows, but It's must easier for them to use a single general-purpose graphical tool (and let's not get started with the abominations VLOOKUP is used for). I used to look down on that but then I realized that using a graphical program for list manipulation is kinda cool and that this program is rather capable, and could create combinations that are rather difficult to do with the more specialized tools. I still use these specialized tools (I'm used to them, and I can do some stuff they can't easily do in Excel).

TeMPOraL 3y ago
Yeah, I used to look down on that kind of things too, and a decade later, I find myself doing those very things. Yes, I know sort | uniq. I even have a couple Linux shells open on my Windows work system. But I can't for the life of me remember the magic flags, so I'll either paste the list to Emacs and M-x sort-lines + M-x delete-duplicate-lines, or paste it to Excel and do it there, or do something even more cheesy - whatever is least likely to break my flow. There are tools more or less optimized for any specific job, but the best tool for the job is the one you have handy, and are experienced in using. I too increasingly often find myself using GPT-4 for random, ad-hoc tasks. They may or may not be better tools out there. I may even have some installed. But none of them beat being able to just describe what you want, paste some data, and get the results out few seconds later.

IanCal 3y ago

> but we're getting tired of this answer because it's not a good answer: "Use GPT-4! Some of the answers aren't that great, but it's at least a starting point." Some of the answers are straight up usable, others if you prefer you can go from there because this a creative language task. And there isn't really a specific tool for this, is there? It's nothing like your comparison to a very well specified problem. "Identify what this thing does, and come up with a title that also contains a word, and the word is related to the topic" is not the same as sort|uniq Vs a spreadsheet.

adrianmonk 3y ago
There are two issues here. (1) The problem is not clearly defined. Does the word need to be thematically related to the topic? (As far as I can tell, "Donut" isn't thematically related to document understanding.) Maybe you could say it's a nice, optional bonus if it's related. (2) The best solution would be good at two things: (A) satisfying constraints and (B) creativity. ChatGPT is unlikely to be good at A, and a non-AI algorithm that just finds valid words can't do B. Regarding #1, if people don't all have the same idea of the problem, they're not going to agree on the solution. Regarding #2, maybe a combined solution would be best. Generate all allowable words, then feed them to ChatGPT and have it say which ones are thematically good.
- IanCal 3y ago
  Tbh I think gpt4 shines at this. People's requirements will be different, in weird ways. Duckdb things are all duck related. Rust is related to crabs. Your project may all be sweets related. It might be serious or fun. Maybe you want a name easy to draw. These are hard to encode. Instead I just asked "Make them more fun, and related to literary characters", then Muppets and awkward ones based on Harry potter which it described as "certainly a unique request". It's faster than getting a word list related to that. And they are frankly great - better than I'd come up with given much longer. https://chat.openai.com/share/d9a31442-96e5-4a18-92d9-d217c7304803 https://chat.openai.com/share/d9a31442-96e5-4a18-92d9-d217c7... This problem is great for llms. It's language, works well with a back and forth discussing good and bad options, has no well defined output requirements but is easy to explain to a person, has a human in the loop and has almost zero cost if it's wrong. > QUIXOTE: Quality Unstructured Information Extraction and Organization Through End-to-end transformer