I think we're all having different experiences and conversations with LLMs, and sometimes framing them purely as "statistical word generators" or expecting them

I think we're all having different experiences and conversations with LLMs, and sometimes framing them purely as "statistical word generators" or expecting them to function like AI in the traditional sense of automated problem-solving might not capture the whole picture. Like many in this community, I use LLMs daily. My main use case now isn’t software development but rather getting assistance in connecting concepts that I don’t know precisely, guided by my intent. In some ways, it's more akin to "out-of-the-box thinking" but with a tool that helps me explore ideas I might not reach on my own or suffer within the economy of search [1][2]. I might know something about X, Y, and Z, but there's a concept W that ties them all together. Without using W, people in that field might not grasp the connections between X, Y, and Z. Apologies for the abstraction here. I suppose it's my epistemological bias showing! Even if LLMs don't precisely connect the dots, they help my brain connect them faster. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_theory [2] https://www.di.ens.fr/~lelarge/soc/varian2.pdf https://www.di.ens.fr/~lelarge/soc/varian2.pdf