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> Then I actually read the code. This is my experience in general. People seem to be impressed by the LLM output until they actually comprehend it. The fastes
by 0points 1y ago
> Then I actually read the code.
This is my experience in general. People seem to be impressed by the LLM output until they actually comprehend it.
The fastest way to have someone break out of this illusion is tell them to chat with the LLM about their own expertise. They will quickly start to notice errors in the output.
- tptacek 1y agoThat has not been my experience at all with networking and cryptography.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jhanschoo 1y agoYour comment is ambiguous; what exactly do you refer to by "that"?
- 0points 1y ago[flagged]
- wickedsight 1y agoThat is no different from pretty any other person in the world. If I interview people to catch them on mistakes, I will be able to do exactly that. Sure, there are some exceptions, like if you were to interview Linus about Linux. Other than that, you'll always be able to find a fluke in someone's knowledge. None of this makes me 'snap out' of anything. Accepting that LLM's aren't perfect means you can just keep that in mind. For me, they're still a knowledge multiplier and they allow me to be more productive in many areas of life.
- tecleandor 1y agoNot at all. Useful or not, LLMs will almost never say "I don't know". They'll happily call a function to a library that never existed. They'll tell you "Incredible idea! You're on the correct path! And you can easily do that with so and so software", and you'll be like "wait what, that software doesn't do that", and they'll answer "Ah, yeah, you're right, of course."
- yujzgzc 1y agoNo there are many techniques now to curb hallucinations. Not perfect but no longer so egregiously overconfident.
- ninkendo 1y ago…such as?
- ignoramous 1y agoTFA says, hallucinations is why "gyms" will be important: Language tooling (compiler, linter, language server, domain-specific static analyses etc) that feed back into the Agent, so it'll know to redo.
- rvnx 1y agoSometimes asking in a loop: "are you sure ? think step-by-step", "are you sure ? think step-by-step", "are you sure ? think step-by-step", "are you sure ? think step-by-step", "verify the result" or similar, you may end up with "I'm sure yes", and then you know you have a quality answer.
- rvnx 1y agoThe most infuriating are the emojis everywhere
- exe34 1y agoOne would hope the experience leads to the position, and not vice-versa.
- Xmd5a 1y ago[flagged]
- rvnx 1y agoA LLM is essentially the world information packed into a very compact format. It is the modern equivalent of the Library of Alexandria. Claiming that your own knowledge is better than all the compressed consensus of the books of the universe, is very optimistic. If you are not sure about the result given by a LLM, it is your task as a human to cross-verify the information. The exact same way that information in books is not 100% accurate, and that Google results are not always telling the truth.
- TheEdonian 1y agoWell let's not forget that it's an opinionated source. There is also the point that if you ask it about a topic it will (often) give you the answer that has the most content about it (or easiest to access information).
- illiac786 1y agoAgree. I find that, for many, LLMs are addictive, a magnet, because it offers to do your work for you, or so it appears. Resisting this temptation is impossibly hard for children for example, and many adults succumb. A good way to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism about its output and keep on checking this output, is asking the LLM about something that happened after the training cut off. For example, I asked if lidar could damage phone lenses. And the LLM very convincingly argued it was highly improbable. Because that recently made the news as a danger for phone lenses, and wasn’t part of the training data. This helps me stay sane and resist the temptation of just accepting LLM output =) On a side note, the kagi assistant is nice for kids I feel because it links to its sources.
- dale_glass 1y agoLIDAR damaging the lens is extremely unlikely. A lens is mostly glass. What it can damage is the sensor, which is actually not at all the same thing as a lens. When asking questions it's important to ask the right question.
- illiac786 1y agoYou put people in nice little drawers, the skeptics, and the non-skeptics. It is reductive and most of all, it’s polarizing. This is how US politics have become and we should avoid this here.
- luffy-taro 1y agoYeah, putting labels on people is not very nice.
- jgrahamc 1y agoAs someone who has followed Thomas' writing on HN for a long time... this is the funniest thing I've ever read here! You clearly have no idea about him at all.
- tptacek 1y agoEspecially coming from you I appreciate that impulse, but I had the experience of running across someone else the Internet (or Bsky, at least) believed I had no business not knowing about, and I did not enjoy it, so I'm now an activist for the cause of "people don't need to know who I am". I should have written more clearly above.
- jgrahamc 1y agoThat is a very good cause!
- rfrey 1y ago... you think tptacek has no expertise in cryptography?
- KoolKat23 1y agoThat proves nothing with respect to the LLMs usefulness, all it means is that you are still useful.
- wiseowise 1y agoYou know who does that also? Humans. I read shitty, broken, amazing, useful code every day, but you don’t see my complaining online that people who earn 100-200k salary don’t produce ideal output right away. And believe me, I spend way more time fixing their shit than LLMs. If I can reduce this even by 10% for 20 dollars it’s a bargain.
- ehutch79 1y agoBut no one is hyping the fact that Bob the mediocre coder is going to replace us.
- capiki 1y agoBut Bob isn’t getting better every 6 months
- barrell 1y agoI’ve definitely improved at a faster rate than LLMs over the last 6 months
- worthless-trash 1y ago[flagged]
- capiki 1y agoLet’s see the evals
- sksisoakanan 1y agohttps://the-decoder.com/openai-quietly-funded-independent-math-benchmark-before-setting-record-with-o3/ https://the-decoder.com/openai-quietly-funded-independent-ma... You mean these? I use AI everyday but you’ve got hundreds of billions of dollars and Scam Altman (known for having no morals and playing dirty) et al on “your” side. The only thing AI skeptics have is anecdotes and time. Having a principled argument isn’t really possible.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]