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Just the fact that I can have something proficient in language trivially accessible to me is really useful. I'm working on something that uses LLMs (language tr

Just the fact that I can have something proficient in language trivially accessible to me is really useful. I'm working on something that uses LLMs (language translation), but besides that I think it's brilliant that I can just ask an LLM to summarise my prompt in a way that gets the point across in far fewer tokens. When I forget a word, I can give it a vague description and it'll find it. I'm terrible at writing emails, and I can just ask it to point out all the little formalisms I need to add to make it "proper". I can benchmark the quality of one LLM's translation by asking another to critique it. It's not infallible, but the ability to chat with a multilingual agent is brilliant. It's a new tool in the toolbox, one that we haven't had in our seventy years of working on computers, and we have seventy years of catchup to do working out where we can apply them. It's also just such a radical departure from what computers are "meant" to be good at. They're bad at mathematics, forgetful, imprecise, and yet they're incredible at poetry and soft tasks. Oh - and they are genuinely useful for studying, too. My A Level Physics contained a lot of multiple choice questions, which were specifically designed to catch people out on incorrect intuitions and had no mark scheme beyond which answer was correct. I could just give gpt-4o a photo of the practice paper and it'd tell me not just the correct answer (which I already knew), but why it was correct, and precisely where my mental model was incorrect. Sure, I could've asked my teacher, and sometimes I did. But she's busy with twenty other students. If everyone asked for help with every little problem she'd be unable to do anything else. But LLMs have infinite patience, and no guilt for asking stupid questions!

skydhash 2y ago
> I can benchmark the quality of one LLM's translation by asking another to critique it Do you speak two or more languages? Anyone that does is wary of automated translations, especially across estranged cultures. > It's a new tool in the toolbox, one that we haven't had in our seventy years of working on computers, It's data analysis at scale, and reliant on scrapping what humans produced. A word processor does not need TB of eBooks to do it's job. > They're bad at mathematics, forgetful, imprecise, and yet they're incredible at poetry and soft tasks. Because there's no wrong or right about poetry. Would you be comfortable having LLMs managing your bank account? > If everyone asked for help with every little problem she'd be unable to do anything else. That would be hand-holding, not learning.
- Alex-Programs 2y ago
  > Do you speak two or more languages? Anyone that does is wary of automated translations, especially across estranged cultures. I'm aware that it's imperfect. It's still pretty cool that they're multilingual as an emergent property - and rather than merely translating, you can discuss aspects of another language. Of course it hallucinates - that's the big problem with LLMs - but that doesn't make it useless. Besides, while automated translators aren't perfect, they're the only option in a lot of situations. > It's data analysis at scale, and reliant on scrapping what humans produced. A word processor does not need TB of eBooks to do it's job. And I'm not replacing word processors with LLMs, nor did I claim that they were trained in a vacuum. > Because there's no wrong or right about poetry. Would you be comfortable having LLMs managing your bank account? No, which is why I don't intend to... they're probabilistic and immensely fallible. I wasn't claiming they were gods. My point was that they're far outside of what we usually use computers for (e.g. managing your bank account), and that opens a lot of possibilities. > That would be hand-holding, not learning. Correct. That's why we don't do it... and in normal circumstances, it'd probably be better to deeply consider the problem in order to work out why you were wrong. But a week before the exam it's excellent. I got a healthy A*, so it doesn't seem to have hurt. What exactly are you arguing against? I'm not convinced they're a route to AGI either, and I'm not about to replace my graphics driver with an LLM, nor code written by one - but you seem to have a vendetta against them that's lead to you sidestepping every single point I made with a snide remark against claims you seem to have imagined me making.
- ikrenji 2y ago
  In some ways being human is also data analysis at scale and being reliant on what others have produced...

skydhash 2y ago

> I can benchmark the quality of one LLM's translation by asking another to critique it Do you speak two or more languages? Anyone that does is wary of automated translations, especially across estranged cultures. > It's a new tool in the toolbox, one that we haven't had in our seventy years of working on computers, It's data analysis at scale, and reliant on scrapping what humans produced. A word processor does not need TB of eBooks to do it's job. > They're bad at mathematics, forgetful, imprecise, and yet they're incredible at poetry and soft tasks. Because there's no wrong or right about poetry. Would you be comfortable having LLMs managing your bank account? > If everyone asked for help with every little problem she'd be unable to do anything else. That would be hand-holding, not learning.

Alex-Programs 2y ago
> Do you speak two or more languages? Anyone that does is wary of automated translations, especially across estranged cultures. I'm aware that it's imperfect. It's still pretty cool that they're multilingual as an emergent property - and rather than merely translating, you can discuss aspects of another language. Of course it hallucinates - that's the big problem with LLMs - but that doesn't make it useless. Besides, while automated translators aren't perfect, they're the only option in a lot of situations. > It's data analysis at scale, and reliant on scrapping what humans produced. A word processor does not need TB of eBooks to do it's job. And I'm not replacing word processors with LLMs, nor did I claim that they were trained in a vacuum. > Because there's no wrong or right about poetry. Would you be comfortable having LLMs managing your bank account? No, which is why I don't intend to... they're probabilistic and immensely fallible. I wasn't claiming they were gods. My point was that they're far outside of what we usually use computers for (e.g. managing your bank account), and that opens a lot of possibilities. > That would be hand-holding, not learning. Correct. That's why we don't do it... and in normal circumstances, it'd probably be better to deeply consider the problem in order to work out why you were wrong. But a week before the exam it's excellent. I got a healthy A*, so it doesn't seem to have hurt. What exactly are you arguing against? I'm not convinced they're a route to AGI either, and I'm not about to replace my graphics driver with an LLM, nor code written by one - but you seem to have a vendetta against them that's lead to you sidestepping every single point I made with a snide remark against claims you seem to have imagined me making.
ikrenji 2y ago
In some ways being human is also data analysis at scale and being reliant on what others have produced...