3 ms·

It's astounding to me that people just like... always trust whatever the LLM says. I have some friends who use ChatGPT for everything. From doing work to askin

by 65 2y ago

It's astounding to me that people just like... always trust whatever the LLM says. I have some friends who use ChatGPT for everything. From doing work to asking simple questions. One of my friends wanted a bio on a certain musician and asked ChatGPT. It's a little frightening he couldn't, you know, read the Wikipedia page of this musician, where all of the same information is and there are sources for this material. My mom said she used ChatGPT to make a "capsule wardrobe" for her. I'm thinking to myself (I did not say this to her)... you can't just like look at your clothes and get rid of ones you don't wear? Why does a computer need to make this simple decision? I'm really not sure LLMs should ever be used as a learning aid. I have never seen a reason to use them over, you know, searching something online. Or thinking of your own creative story. If someone can make a solid use case as to why LLMs are useful I would like to hear.

kridsdale1 2y ago
Regarding your mom’s clothes: she wasn’t asking the machine to give advice she couldn’t think of on her own, she was seeking external validation and permission to purge and override the hoarder urge of her personality. This is like when CEOs hire outside consulting firms to do layoffs for them. Pinning the pain of loss on some scapegoat makes it more bearable.
nottorp 2y ago
> One of my friends wanted a bio on a certain musician and asked ChatGPT. I use ChatGPT (or Gemini) instead of web searches. You can blame the content and link farms that are top of the search results, and the search engines focusing on advertising instead of search, because we're the product. Why your friend doesn't know about wikipedia is another matter, if i wanted a generic info page about some topic i'd go directly there. But if i wanted to know if Bob Geldof's hair is blue, I might ask a LLM instead of reading the whole wikipedia page. I also ask LLMs for introductory info about programming topics i don't know about, because i don't want to go to google and end up on w3schools, geeksforgeeks and crap like that. I don't really trust LLMs for advanced programming topics, you know, what people pay me for. But they're fine for giving me a function signature or even a small example.
- 65 2y ago
  You can use source material instead of LLMs for all of this. "Is Bob Geldof's hair blue?" -> Search for Bob Geldof -> Look at images of Bob Geldof. Intro programming topics can be found at the documentation of the website. Your searching query might be "[programming topic] getting started" and usually if it's a package or a tool there will be documentation. If you want good documentation on web dev stuff that isn't w3schools or geeksforgeeks you can use MDN documentation. Or, if you really want a general overview there's probably a YouTube video about the topic. Additionally appending "reddit" to a search will give better results than SEO junk. There are always ways to find quality information via search engines.
  - nottorp 2y ago
    > "Is Bob Geldof's hair blue?" -> Search for Bob Geldof -> Look at images of Bob Geldof Assuming I get images of Bob Geldof. More likely the first page will be pinterest login-required results. > there's probably a YouTube video about the topic. Life's too short to watch talking heads about ... you know, WRITING code ... > can be found at the documentation of the website Seriously? Maybe for the top 500 npm packages. Not for the more obscure libraries that may have only some doxygen generated list of functions at best.
    - 65 2y ago
      > Assuming I get images of Bob Geldof. More likely the first page will be pinterest login-required results. You do realize Google/Bing/DDG/Kagi all have an Images tab, right? Come on. > Life's too short to watch talking heads about ... you know, WRITING code ... If I want a high level overview of what the thing even is, a YouTube video can be useful since there will be explanations and visual examples. You can read documentation as well. For example, if I want a slower overview of something step by step, or a talk at a conference about why to use this thing, YouTube can be helpful. I was just looking at videos about HTMX this weekend, hearing presentations by the authors and some samples. That's not saying if I actually use the thing I won't be reading the documentation, it's more just useful for understand what the thing is. > Seriously? Maybe for the top 500 npm packages. Not for the more obscure libraries that may have only some doxygen generated list of functions at best. How do you expect your LLM to do any better? If you're using some obscure package there will probably be documentation in the GitHub README somewhere. If it's horrible documentation you can read the Typescript types or do a code search on GitHub for examples. This is all to say that I generally don't trust LLM output because I have better methods of finding the information LLMs are trained on. And no hallucinations.
twobitshifter 2y ago
I agree, at first I thought gpt would be used by tech savvy folk, but now it is clear that it’s becoming a crutch. My friend couldn’t respond to an email without it.

by 65 2y ago

kridsdale1 2y ago

Regarding your mom’s clothes: she wasn’t asking the machine to give advice she couldn’t think of on her own, she was seeking external validation and permission to purge and override the hoarder urge of her personality. This is like when CEOs hire outside consulting firms to do layoffs for them. Pinning the pain of loss on some scapegoat makes it more bearable.

nottorp 2y ago

> One of my friends wanted a bio on a certain musician and asked ChatGPT. I use ChatGPT (or Gemini) instead of web searches. You can blame the content and link farms that are top of the search results, and the search engines focusing on advertising instead of search, because we're the product. Why your friend doesn't know about wikipedia is another matter, if i wanted a generic info page about some topic i'd go directly there. But if i wanted to know if Bob Geldof's hair is blue, I might ask a LLM instead of reading the whole wikipedia page. I also ask LLMs for introductory info about programming topics i don't know about, because i don't want to go to google and end up on w3schools, geeksforgeeks and crap like that. I don't really trust LLMs for advanced programming topics, you know, what people pay me for. But they're fine for giving me a function signature or even a small example.

65 2y ago
You can use source material instead of LLMs for all of this. "Is Bob Geldof's hair blue?" -> Search for Bob Geldof -> Look at images of Bob Geldof. Intro programming topics can be found at the documentation of the website. Your searching query might be "[programming topic] getting started" and usually if it's a package or a tool there will be documentation. If you want good documentation on web dev stuff that isn't w3schools or geeksforgeeks you can use MDN documentation. Or, if you really want a general overview there's probably a YouTube video about the topic. Additionally appending "reddit" to a search will give better results than SEO junk. There are always ways to find quality information via search engines.
- nottorp 2y ago
  > "Is Bob Geldof's hair blue?" -> Search for Bob Geldof -> Look at images of Bob Geldof Assuming I get images of Bob Geldof. More likely the first page will be pinterest login-required results. > there's probably a YouTube video about the topic. Life's too short to watch talking heads about ... you know, WRITING code ... > can be found at the documentation of the website Seriously? Maybe for the top 500 npm packages. Not for the more obscure libraries that may have only some doxygen generated list of functions at best.
  - 65 2y ago
    > Assuming I get images of Bob Geldof. More likely the first page will be pinterest login-required results. You do realize Google/Bing/DDG/Kagi all have an Images tab, right? Come on. > Life's too short to watch talking heads about ... you know, WRITING code ... If I want a high level overview of what the thing even is, a YouTube video can be useful since there will be explanations and visual examples. You can read documentation as well. For example, if I want a slower overview of something step by step, or a talk at a conference about why to use this thing, YouTube can be helpful. I was just looking at videos about HTMX this weekend, hearing presentations by the authors and some samples. That's not saying if I actually use the thing I won't be reading the documentation, it's more just useful for understand what the thing is. > Seriously? Maybe for the top 500 npm packages. Not for the more obscure libraries that may have only some doxygen generated list of functions at best. How do you expect your LLM to do any better? If you're using some obscure package there will probably be documentation in the GitHub README somewhere. If it's horrible documentation you can read the Typescript types or do a code search on GitHub for examples. This is all to say that I generally don't trust LLM output because I have better methods of finding the information LLMs are trained on. And no hallucinations.

twobitshifter 2y ago

I agree, at first I thought gpt would be used by tech savvy folk, but now it is clear that it’s becoming a crutch. My friend couldn’t respond to an email without it.