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Curious question for those who pay for courses or paid in last year : What makes you pay for them when you can have any major LLM like ChatGPT teach you patient

by suyash 2y ago

Curious question for those who pay for courses or paid in last year : What makes you pay for them when you can have any major LLM like ChatGPT teach you patiently?

mindcrime 2y ago
I've bought quite a few Udemy courses over the years. I only buy them when they are having one of their sales, of course. I've never paid "list price" for a Udemy course as far as I know. But that said, why would I buy a course over using an LLM? A couple of reasons come to mind: 1. I'm just more familiar/comfortable with the modality of listening to an instructor lecture and use visual aids, than chatting with an LLM when working on getting an understanding of a broad field. I see LLM's as more suited for more focused, "bite sized" interactions. For example, asking one how to solve a specific math problem that I am stuck on or something. 2. I also don't necessarily trust the LLM completely. And if I'm learning something that's very new to me, then by definition I won't be equipped to detect when the LLM is hallucinating. If I'm asking about something where it's easy to "check my answer" or confirm the information, then fine. But otherwise I still have a measure of skepticism (and I say this as somebody who is, in general, very "pro AI").
belter 2y ago
The LLM helps you with the Known Unknowns while the course with Unknown Unknowns...
rvdginste 2y ago
A good course will teach you everything on a topic in a structured way. Personally I believe there is a lot more value in well-structured material than in a bunch of responses on rather ad-hoc questions to ChatGPT. Also be aware that not everything ChatGPT answers, is correct. In the case of a decent course, one can assume that the information is correct. I feel this is similar to asking whether there would be value in paying for a well-written book on a topic, compared to just searching and reading information online on that topic, be it official documentation, or be it third-party information from blog posts, other articles. In my opinion, a well-written course or book will give you a much deeper knowledge in a much more efficient way than what you get from ChatGPT or from searching the internet.

by suyash 2y ago

Curious question for those who pay for courses or paid in last year : What makes you pay for them when you can have any major LLM like ChatGPT teach you patiently?

mindcrime 2y ago

I've bought quite a few Udemy courses over the years. I only buy them when they are having one of their sales, of course. I've never paid "list price" for a Udemy course as far as I know. But that said, why would I buy a course over using an LLM? A couple of reasons come to mind: 1. I'm just more familiar/comfortable with the modality of listening to an instructor lecture and use visual aids, than chatting with an LLM when working on getting an understanding of a broad field. I see LLM's as more suited for more focused, "bite sized" interactions. For example, asking one how to solve a specific math problem that I am stuck on or something. 2. I also don't necessarily trust the LLM completely. And if I'm learning something that's very new to me, then by definition I won't be equipped to detect when the LLM is hallucinating. If I'm asking about something where it's easy to "check my answer" or confirm the information, then fine. But otherwise I still have a measure of skepticism (and I say this as somebody who is, in general, very "pro AI").

belter 2y ago

The LLM helps you with the Known Unknowns while the course with Unknown Unknowns...

rvdginste 2y ago

A good course will teach you everything on a topic in a structured way. Personally I believe there is a lot more value in well-structured material than in a bunch of responses on rather ad-hoc questions to ChatGPT. Also be aware that not everything ChatGPT answers, is correct. In the case of a decent course, one can assume that the information is correct. I feel this is similar to asking whether there would be value in paying for a well-written book on a topic, compared to just searching and reading information online on that topic, be it official documentation, or be it third-party information from blog posts, other articles. In my opinion, a well-written course or book will give you a much deeper knowledge in a much more efficient way than what you get from ChatGPT or from searching the internet.