4 ms·

A bit of a meta topic but the one thing that probably grinds my nerves more than it should is this style of comments that are not extremely additive and simply

A bit of a meta topic but the one thing that probably grinds my nerves more than it should is this style of comments that are not extremely additive and simply posit some idea without experience or backing statements. Happens a lot in these LLM discussions. Perhaps there is genuine curiosity but it seems to always read as an objection to the idea of these tools coming from someone who has not used them.

nevertoolate 1y ago
On the other hand I only see downvotes and _never_ an answer on how you are using llms. The anecdotal 8hours to 30 minutes PR sounds great, but in my experience it just won’t happen. How can you set up llm to work autonomously for _hours_? If it is continuous “pair” work I just don’t see the 30 min work solving a beefy PR. In 8 hours coding with a well thought out plan / re-planning, testing one can finish quite interesting stuff. 30 minutes is basically nothing - and this is kinda what you get with an llm in my experience. How do you do it?
- infecto 1y ago
  Either your head is in the sand or you have not been on HN much. Practically every week there are multiple articles that make the front page either for or against LLM tooling, in each of those people, including myself, will share anecdotes from their own experiences. And you will also get a number of folks like the person I responded too who post a negative or positive comment without any evidence or attempt to learn on their own before making a claim. You say you never see people talking about their experiences but there is usually nothing but experiences being posted in these comments every week. It’s an absurd claim. Don’t misjudge me either, I am not suggesting there should not be critical comments but that if you make a critical comment you should at least have an idea what your talking about.
  - nevertoolate 1y ago
    I’m not sure if you have read my question, but I can tell you think I don’t know what is happening in with the llm scene. I’m aware, late? into the game, doing my own experiments. I asked a specific question - have spent ~100 hours in claude chat already implementing production features, prototypes and scripts. Anyways. :)
    - infecto 1y ago
      I read and replied to the bit that matters. Anyways ;)
ezst 1y ago
To me it's a useful reminder that those tools are nothing but text generating algorithms, optimised to produce compelling answers, irrespective whether they are truthful or not, having no concept of what's factual, and completely missing the ability to give up when asked for impossible or unreasonable answers outside of their training data. In essence, they are only adequate in niche situations (like creative writing, marketing, placeholder during iterative design, …) where there's no such social contract and assumption that people operate in good faith and do their best diligence not to deceive others. Pretending otherwise, not pushing back when LLMs are clearly used outside of those contexts, or dressing them into what they are not (thinking machines, search engines, knowledge archives, …) is doing the work of useful idiots defending tech oligarchs and data thieves against their own interests. And yeah, I get it, naysayers are annoying. Doesn't mean they are wrong or their voices shouldn't be heard at a time where the legality and ethics of all this are being debated.
- infecto 1y ago
  I tried reading your comment but it was a little difficult, there was a lot of hints of ChatGPT fluff. Ultimately saying a LLM is only useful in niche situations is a tell of the boat passing you by. I am not advocating that they solve all problems but they are definitely more useful than simply “niche” workflows.
  - ezst 1y ago
    > there was a lot of hints of ChatGPT fluff. What does that mean? Are you implying that I used a LLM to formulate my comment? A comment about the dangers of LLMs for civic and respectful discourse? > Ultimately saying a LLM is only useful in niche situations is a fact. LLMs are not something new or obscure, we have plenty of open-source/weights implementations keeping in check the outlandish marketing promises of the big players and their "SOTA" models. > …is a tell of the boat passing you by. is an opinion, giving an emotional twist to something that really doesn't deserve one. All it shows is that you bought into LLMs being more than what they really are, and welcome the (admittedly cool and tempting) marketing above the truth and your critical and independent thinking on the subject.

nevertoolate 1y ago

On the other hand I only see downvotes and _never_ an answer on how you are using llms. The anecdotal 8hours to 30 minutes PR sounds great, but in my experience it just won’t happen. How can you set up llm to work autonomously for _hours_? If it is continuous “pair” work I just don’t see the 30 min work solving a beefy PR. In 8 hours coding with a well thought out plan / re-planning, testing one can finish quite interesting stuff. 30 minutes is basically nothing - and this is kinda what you get with an llm in my experience. How do you do it?

infecto 1y ago
Either your head is in the sand or you have not been on HN much. Practically every week there are multiple articles that make the front page either for or against LLM tooling, in each of those people, including myself, will share anecdotes from their own experiences. And you will also get a number of folks like the person I responded too who post a negative or positive comment without any evidence or attempt to learn on their own before making a claim. You say you never see people talking about their experiences but there is usually nothing but experiences being posted in these comments every week. It’s an absurd claim. Don’t misjudge me either, I am not suggesting there should not be critical comments but that if you make a critical comment you should at least have an idea what your talking about.
- nevertoolate 1y ago
  I’m not sure if you have read my question, but I can tell you think I don’t know what is happening in with the llm scene. I’m aware, late? into the game, doing my own experiments. I asked a specific question - have spent ~100 hours in claude chat already implementing production features, prototypes and scripts. Anyways. :)
  - infecto 1y ago
    I read and replied to the bit that matters. Anyways ;)

ezst 1y ago

To me it's a useful reminder that those tools are nothing but text generating algorithms, optimised to produce compelling answers, irrespective whether they are truthful or not, having no concept of what's factual, and completely missing the ability to give up when asked for impossible or unreasonable answers outside of their training data. In essence, they are only adequate in niche situations (like creative writing, marketing, placeholder during iterative design, …) where there's no such social contract and assumption that people operate in good faith and do their best diligence not to deceive others. Pretending otherwise, not pushing back when LLMs are clearly used outside of those contexts, or dressing them into what they are not (thinking machines, search engines, knowledge archives, …) is doing the work of useful idiots defending tech oligarchs and data thieves against their own interests. And yeah, I get it, naysayers are annoying. Doesn't mean they are wrong or their voices shouldn't be heard at a time where the legality and ethics of all this are being debated.

infecto 1y ago
I tried reading your comment but it was a little difficult, there was a lot of hints of ChatGPT fluff. Ultimately saying a LLM is only useful in niche situations is a tell of the boat passing you by. I am not advocating that they solve all problems but they are definitely more useful than simply “niche” workflows.
- ezst 1y ago
  > there was a lot of hints of ChatGPT fluff. What does that mean? Are you implying that I used a LLM to formulate my comment? A comment about the dangers of LLMs for civic and respectful discourse? > Ultimately saying a LLM is only useful in niche situations is a fact. LLMs are not something new or obscure, we have plenty of open-source/weights implementations keeping in check the outlandish marketing promises of the big players and their "SOTA" models. > …is a tell of the boat passing you by. is an opinion, giving an emotional twist to something that really doesn't deserve one. All it shows is that you bought into LLMs being more than what they really are, and welcome the (admittedly cool and tempting) marketing above the truth and your critical and independent thinking on the subject.