4 ms·

But it's not "direct access to every PhD in the world." You don't really believe that do you?

crazygringo 2y ago
It gives me better answers on most things than my actual PhD friends do. So... yeah? The funny thing is, it's somewhat less useful for certain business stuff, because so much of that is private within corporations. But the stuff you learn in a PhD program is all published. And it's pretty phenomenal at distilling that information to answer any specific question. Multiple times a week I run into an obscure term or concept in a paper that isn't defined well or doesn't seem to make sense. I ask AI and it explains it to me in a minute. Yes, it's basically exactly like asking a PhD.
- nessbot 2y ago
  "But the stuff you learn in a PhD program is all published." - What? This is the kind of misunderstanding of knowledge that AI boosters present that drives me insane. And last sentences conflate a PhD with a google search or even dictionary lookup. I mean, c'mon!
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    I'm not talking about learning practical skills like research and teaching, or laboratory skills. I'm talking about the factual knowledge. Academia is built on open publishing. Do you disagree? And the things I'm looking up just can't be found in Google or a dictionary. It's something defined in some random paper from 1987, further developed by someone else in 1998, that the author didn't cite.
    - spencerflem 2y ago
      And something that lead you to that paper would be wonderful but instead you have been disconnected from the social side of scholarship and forced to take the AI "at its word". I've also seen AI just completely make up nonsense out of nowhere as recently as last week.
      - crazygringo 2y ago
        Huh? Nobody's forcing me to "take the AI at its word". It's the easiest thing to verify. And I've got enough of the social side of scholarship already. Professors don't need me emailing them with questions, and I don't need to wait days for replies that may or may not come.
        spencerflem 2y ago
        How do you verify it or connect it with other papers if it gives you a summary instead of linking to the paper itself?
        crazygringo 2y ago
        You literally ask it for the paper(s) and author(s) associated, put them into Google Scholar, and go read them. If it hallucinates a paper title, Scholar will usually find the relevant work(s) anyways because the author and title are close enough. If those fail, you Google some of the terms in the explanation, which is generally much more successful than Googling the original query. If you can't find anything at all, then it was probably a total hallucination, and you try the prompt a different way. That probably happens less than 1% of the time, however. I mean, it's all just kind of common sense how to use an LLM.
        spencerflem 2y ago
        Fair enough, if you're using it as a better way to find relevant papers I have no complaints. I've mainly seen it used for getting answers without needing to or even being able to access the original source.
- elicksaur 2y ago
  The AI is optimized for producing text that sounds like it makes sense and is helpful. This is not a guarantee that the text it produces is a correct explanation of the thing you are asking about. It’s a mental trick like a psychic reading tea leaves.
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    I'm so tired of this caveat. It's generally pretty obvious if the explanation makes sense. And you can locate the original paper(s) as well to verify. And you know what? My PhD friends get things wrong all the time too. I need to verify what they say as well. "This is not a guarantee"? You're right. Nothing is a guarantee, but a lot of things are awfully helpful.
    - elicksaur 2y ago
      I’m tired of “Well people get things wrong, too.” as a defense of these systems. They should stand or fall on their own merit. And yes, reducing everything in the world - nothing matters. Everything is relative. What even is truth, amirite? If that’s our slogan for the future then it is hella depressing.
      - crazygringo 2y ago
        > They should stand or fall on their own merit. And they do. They stand on the fact that they save time, raise productivity, and assist in learning. That's the merit. Demanding absolute perfection as the only measure of merit is bonkers. And if that's the standard you hold everything in your life too, you must be pretty disappointed with the world...
        elicksaur 2y ago
        None of my comments say I’m demanding perfection. That’s a fallacy to reduce my position to absurdism, so it can be easily dismissed. LLMs have not improved my productivity. When I have tried to use them, they have been a net negative. There are many other people who report a similar experience.
spencerflem 2y ago
They do is the thing
elicksaur 2y ago
It’s like the people who say these things live on a different planet. Or an alternate timeline where a different version of LLMs were invented.

It gives me better answers on most things than my actual PhD friends do. So... yeah? The funny thing is, it's somewhat less useful for certain business stuff, because so much of that is private within corporations. But the stuff you learn in a PhD program is all published. And it's pretty phenomenal at distilling that information to answer any specific question. Multiple times a week I run into an obscure term or concept in a paper that isn't defined well or doesn't seem to make sense. I ask AI and it explains it to me in a minute. Yes, it's basically exactly like asking a PhD.

nessbot 2y ago
"But the stuff you learn in a PhD program is all published." - What? This is the kind of misunderstanding of knowledge that AI boosters present that drives me insane. And last sentences conflate a PhD with a google search or even dictionary lookup. I mean, c'mon!
- crazygringo 2y ago
  I'm not talking about learning practical skills like research and teaching, or laboratory skills. I'm talking about the factual knowledge. Academia is built on open publishing. Do you disagree? And the things I'm looking up just can't be found in Google or a dictionary. It's something defined in some random paper from 1987, further developed by someone else in 1998, that the author didn't cite.
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    And something that lead you to that paper would be wonderful but instead you have been disconnected from the social side of scholarship and forced to take the AI "at its word". I've also seen AI just completely make up nonsense out of nowhere as recently as last week.
    - crazygringo 2y ago
      Huh? Nobody's forcing me to "take the AI at its word". It's the easiest thing to verify. And I've got enough of the social side of scholarship already. Professors don't need me emailing them with questions, and I don't need to wait days for replies that may or may not come.
      - spencerflem 2y ago
        How do you verify it or connect it with other papers if it gives you a summary instead of linking to the paper itself?
        crazygringo 2y ago
        You literally ask it for the paper(s) and author(s) associated, put them into Google Scholar, and go read them. If it hallucinates a paper title, Scholar will usually find the relevant work(s) anyways because the author and title are close enough. If those fail, you Google some of the terms in the explanation, which is generally much more successful than Googling the original query. If you can't find anything at all, then it was probably a total hallucination, and you try the prompt a different way. That probably happens less than 1% of the time, however. I mean, it's all just kind of common sense how to use an LLM.
        spencerflem 2y ago
        Fair enough, if you're using it as a better way to find relevant papers I have no complaints. I've mainly seen it used for getting answers without needing to or even being able to access the original source.
elicksaur 2y ago
The AI is optimized for producing text that sounds like it makes sense and is helpful. This is not a guarantee that the text it produces is a correct explanation of the thing you are asking about. It’s a mental trick like a psychic reading tea leaves.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  I'm so tired of this caveat. It's generally pretty obvious if the explanation makes sense. And you can locate the original paper(s) as well to verify. And you know what? My PhD friends get things wrong all the time too. I need to verify what they say as well. "This is not a guarantee"? You're right. Nothing is a guarantee, but a lot of things are awfully helpful.
  - elicksaur 2y ago
    I’m tired of “Well people get things wrong, too.” as a defense of these systems. They should stand or fall on their own merit. And yes, reducing everything in the world - nothing matters. Everything is relative. What even is truth, amirite? If that’s our slogan for the future then it is hella depressing.
    - crazygringo 2y ago
      > They should stand or fall on their own merit. And they do. They stand on the fact that they save time, raise productivity, and assist in learning. That's the merit. Demanding absolute perfection as the only measure of merit is bonkers. And if that's the standard you hold everything in your life too, you must be pretty disappointed with the world...
      - elicksaur 2y ago
        None of my comments say I’m demanding perfection. That’s a fallacy to reduce my position to absurdism, so it can be easily dismissed. LLMs have not improved my productivity. When I have tried to use them, they have been a net negative. There are many other people who report a similar experience.

spencerflem 2y ago

They do is the thing

elicksaur 2y ago

It’s like the people who say these things live on a different planet. Or an alternate timeline where a different version of LLMs were invented.