People really need to stop trying to model an LLM as some kind of magical software component: it all makes a lot more sense if you model it as an under-performi

People really need to stop trying to model an LLM as some kind of magical software component: it all makes a lot more sense if you model it as an under-performing poorly-aligned employee; so like, maybe a distracted kid working for peanuts at your store. You wouldn't trust them to with all of your money and you wouldn't trust them to do a lot of math--if they had to be in charge of checkout, you'd make sure they are only given a point-of-sale terminal and their main job was to, at best, scan the barcodes and compare the total--and yet there are tasks you can imagine handing to them that you'd never give to a robot or computer even though they get it wrong a lot, as not all tasks need to be handled perfectly, they still understand extremely fuzzy tasks, and they are probably cheaper than a qualified adult (certainly cheaper than one who is being paid enough to "give a shit" and pay enough attention to not let you get robbed or even put themselves at some risk for you).