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My experience is instead that LLMs (those I used) can be helpful there where solutions are quite well known (e.g. a standard task in some technology used by man

by mdp2021 2y ago

My experience is instead that LLMs (those I used) can be helpful there where solutions are quite well known (e.g. a standard task in some technology used by many), and terrible where the problem has not been tackled much by the public. About language (point (1)), I get a lot of "hypnotism for salesmen to non technical managers and roundabout comments" (e.g. "which wire should I cut, I have a red one and a blue one" // "It is mission critical to cut the right wire; in order to decide which wire to cut, we must first get acquainted with the idea that cutting the wrong wire will make the device explode..." // "Yes, which one?" // "Cutting the wrong one can have critical consequences...")

marcosdumay 2y ago
> My experience is instead that LLMs (those I used) can be helpful there where solutions are quite well known Yes, that's a necessary condition. If there isn't some well known solution, LLMs won't give you anything useful. The point though, is that the solution was not well known to the GP. That's where LLMs shine, they "understand" what you are trying to say, and give you the answer you need, even when you don't know the applicable jargon.
klabb3 2y ago
> and terrible where the problem has not been tackled much by the public Very much so (I should have added this as a downside in the original comment). Before I even ask a question I ask myself "does it have training data on this?". Also, having a bad answer is only one failure mode. More commonly, I find that it drifts towards the "center of gravity", i.e. the mainstream or most popular school of thought, which is like talking to someone with a strong status-quo bias. However, before you've familiarized yourself with a new domain, the "current state of things" is a pretty good bargain to learn fast, at least for my brain.
khaledh 2y ago
Agreed. LLMs pull you towards the average knowledge, and they suck when you're trying to find a creative solution that challenges the status quo.

marcosdumay 2y ago

> My experience is instead that LLMs (those I used) can be helpful there where solutions are quite well known Yes, that's a necessary condition. If there isn't some well known solution, LLMs won't give you anything useful. The point though, is that the solution was not well known to the GP. That's where LLMs shine, they "understand" what you are trying to say, and give you the answer you need, even when you don't know the applicable jargon.

klabb3 2y ago

> and terrible where the problem has not been tackled much by the public Very much so (I should have added this as a downside in the original comment). Before I even ask a question I ask myself "does it have training data on this?". Also, having a bad answer is only one failure mode. More commonly, I find that it drifts towards the "center of gravity", i.e. the mainstream or most popular school of thought, which is like talking to someone with a strong status-quo bias. However, before you've familiarized yourself with a new domain, the "current state of things" is a pretty good bargain to learn fast, at least for my brain.

khaledh 2y ago

Agreed. LLMs pull you towards the average knowledge, and they suck when you're trying to find a creative solution that challenges the status quo.