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Used incorrectly. Yes. LLMs, for me, have been tremendously useful in learning new concepts. I frequently feed it my own notes and ask it to correct any misund

Used incorrectly. Yes. LLMs, for me, have been tremendously useful in learning new concepts. I frequently feed it my own notes and ask it to correct any misunderstandings, or to expand on things I don’t understand. I use it like I would an on demand tutor, but I can totally understand how it could be used as a shortcut that wouldn’t be helpful. In the same way, I can hire a tutor that will help me actually learn, or I can hire a “tutor” that just does the homework for me. I’ve worked as a tutor so I’ve seen people looking for both, and people that don’t want to learn are always going to find a way. People who do want to learn are also going to find a way.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> frequently feed it my own notes and ask it to correct any misunderstandings, or to expand on things I don’t understand In what fields? I’ve tried this with some simple finance and aerospace problems; it’s me, sophomore year undergrad, except someone laced everything I drank with LSD.
- arrowsmith 2y ago
  I find it's good at answering my questions about humanities subjects e.g. history. Maybe it's only as good as an undergraduate, but I don't have a humanities degree, so an undergraduate is someone I can learn from.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    If it’s leading you to sources, go for it. If you’re taking it point blank, consider what you’re learning. (If it isn’t pointing you to sources, ask for them.)
- blitzar 2y ago
  > it’s me sophomore year undergrad, laced with LSD That was the deepest most insightful version of me.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  Technical fields. Right now I'm going through the Dive Into Deep Learning course/textbook. Oftentimes it will gloss over a concept, or assume knowledge. For a specific example: I wanted an expansion of why there are different loss functions and why you might choose one over another since the source material sort of plowed right through it. I got a good answer to my question without having to spend an hour reading through other materials
i-am-fnord 2y ago
> LLMs, for me, have been tremendously useful in learning new concepts. Are you validating this in a rigorous way like this study, or are you just "feeling" like it's useful for your learning?
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  You want me to put a sample size of 1 anecdote through a peer reviewed study? All I'm saying is that I find it to be useful to be able to ask questions about topics that I'm learning, and have them answered instantly instead of having to use a search engine or other resource to hunt down an answer to a specific question. For a recent example where I am learning about deep learning: In what circumstances is MSE a useful loss function for regression? This is not a hard question to answer from a variety of resources, but I find it particularly useful to have my question answered differently instead of having to sort through a variety of resources. Maybe I'm losing something by not having to click through a few different resources and parse information that isn't directly relevant to what I want to learn. But for me, getting the answer fast keeps me from having to break away from the actual material that I'm learning.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> frequently feed it my own notes and ask it to correct any misunderstandings, or to expand on things I don’t understand In what fields? I’ve tried this with some simple finance and aerospace problems; it’s me, sophomore year undergrad, except someone laced everything I drank with LSD.

arrowsmith 2y ago
I find it's good at answering my questions about humanities subjects e.g. history. Maybe it's only as good as an undergraduate, but I don't have a humanities degree, so an undergraduate is someone I can learn from.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  If it’s leading you to sources, go for it. If you’re taking it point blank, consider what you’re learning. (If it isn’t pointing you to sources, ask for them.)
blitzar 2y ago
> it’s me sophomore year undergrad, laced with LSD That was the deepest most insightful version of me.
dghlsakjg 2y ago
Technical fields. Right now I'm going through the Dive Into Deep Learning course/textbook. Oftentimes it will gloss over a concept, or assume knowledge. For a specific example: I wanted an expansion of why there are different loss functions and why you might choose one over another since the source material sort of plowed right through it. I got a good answer to my question without having to spend an hour reading through other materials

i-am-fnord 2y ago

> LLMs, for me, have been tremendously useful in learning new concepts. Are you validating this in a rigorous way like this study, or are you just "feeling" like it's useful for your learning?

dghlsakjg 2y ago
You want me to put a sample size of 1 anecdote through a peer reviewed study? All I'm saying is that I find it to be useful to be able to ask questions about topics that I'm learning, and have them answered instantly instead of having to use a search engine or other resource to hunt down an answer to a specific question. For a recent example where I am learning about deep learning: In what circumstances is MSE a useful loss function for regression? This is not a hard question to answer from a variety of resources, but I find it particularly useful to have my question answered differently instead of having to sort through a variety of resources. Maybe I'm losing something by not having to click through a few different resources and parse information that isn't directly relevant to what I want to learn. But for me, getting the answer fast keeps me from having to break away from the actual material that I'm learning.