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They are also useful for association. Imagine an LLM trained on documentation. Then you can retrieve info associated with your question. This can go beyond jus

They are also useful for association. Imagine an LLM trained on documentation. Then you can retrieve info associated with your question. This can go beyond just specific documentation but also include things like "common knowledge" which is what the other poster meant when they talked about "teaching you things".

palata 1y ago
In my experience, if the information I need is in the documentation, then I don't need the LLM. If it is not in the documentation, then the LLM will invent stuff that could be there but that isn't, and it's actually a loss of time.
- valenterry 1y ago
  > In my experience, if the information I need is in the documentation, then I don't need the LLM need is a strong word. Do you need to be able to do ctrl+F? Not really, you can just read it all. But maybe it's easier to do ctrl+F. Same with LLM. Just imagine it as a fuzzy ctrl+F. Can be useful.
  - palata 1y ago
    The thing is, being able to read documentation is a skill. Being really good at ctrl+F / LLM is not the same. I learn a lot just browsing through documentation, without searching anything in particular.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    Fuzzy isn't what I want to be when referring documentation. So much documentation is incomplete to begin with. That's the big issue with LLMs as of now; They reflect their American creators and never want to admit when they just can't answer a question. CTRL+F will in fact give me 0 results, which is more useful than a wrong result.
    - valenterry 1y ago
      I agree. However, as a non-native speaker, I really like the fact that I can give the LLM some description of a word that I don't know and it'll figure it out. "those fruits that are kind of bitter but also make my tongue feel like it wants to curl" (= "adstringend" [sic] or so, but who remembers that word or can spell it correctly?) LLMs are basically like all those type-correction algorithms on steroids. Very helpful sometimes, even if it means I have to doublecheck their output.

palata 1y ago

In my experience, if the information I need is in the documentation, then I don't need the LLM. If it is not in the documentation, then the LLM will invent stuff that could be there but that isn't, and it's actually a loss of time.

valenterry 1y ago
> In my experience, if the information I need is in the documentation, then I don't need the LLM need is a strong word. Do you need to be able to do ctrl+F? Not really, you can just read it all. But maybe it's easier to do ctrl+F. Same with LLM. Just imagine it as a fuzzy ctrl+F. Can be useful.
- palata 1y ago
  The thing is, being able to read documentation is a skill. Being really good at ctrl+F / LLM is not the same. I learn a lot just browsing through documentation, without searching anything in particular.
- johnnyanmac 1y ago
  Fuzzy isn't what I want to be when referring documentation. So much documentation is incomplete to begin with. That's the big issue with LLMs as of now; They reflect their American creators and never want to admit when they just can't answer a question. CTRL+F will in fact give me 0 results, which is more useful than a wrong result.
  - valenterry 1y ago
    I agree. However, as a non-native speaker, I really like the fact that I can give the LLM some description of a word that I don't know and it'll figure it out. "those fruits that are kind of bitter but also make my tongue feel like it wants to curl" (= "adstringend" [sic] or so, but who remembers that word or can spell it correctly?) LLMs are basically like all those type-correction algorithms on steroids. Very helpful sometimes, even if it means I have to doublecheck their output.