5 ms·
One area of business that I'm struggling in is how boring it is talking to an LLM, I enjoy standing at a whiteboard thinking through ideas, but more and more I
by neom 1y ago
One area of business that I'm struggling in is how boring it is talking to an LLM, I enjoy standing at a whiteboard thinking through ideas, but more and more I see push for "talk to the llm, ask the llm, the llm will know" - The LLM will know, but I'd rather talk to a human about it. Also in pure business, it takes me too long to unlock nuances that an experienced human just knows, I have to do a lot of "yeah but" work, way way more than I would have to do with an experienced humans. I like LLMs and I push for their use, but I'm starting to find something here and I can't put my finger on what it is, I guess they're not wide enough to capture deep nuances? As a result, they seem pretty bad at understanding how a human will react to their ideas in practice.
- ricw 1y agoJust do both? Need an adequate network for that though which new school ai vibe entrepreneurs might lack…
- neom 1y agoBoth indeed. I'm older, I do consulting, often to the new school AI CEOs and they keep thinking I'm nuts for saying we should bring in this person to talk to about this thing...I've tried to explain to a few folks now a human would be much better in this loop, but I have no good way to prove it as it's just experience. I've noticed across the board, they also spend A LOT of time getting all the data into LLMs so they can talk to them instead of just reading reports, like bro, you don't understand churn fundamentally, why are you looking at these numbers??
- baxtr 1y agoOk wow this is actually frightening. I talked to a friend recently who is a plastic surgeon. He told me about a young pretty girl came in recently with super clear ideas what she wanted to fixed. Turns out she uploaded her pictures to an LLM and it gave her recommendations. My friend told her she didn’t need any treatment at this stage but she kept insisting that the LLM had told her this and that. I’m worried that these young folks just trust whatever these things tell them to do is right.
- sheepscreek 1y agoI know what you mean. Also, the more niche your topic the more outright wrong LLMs tend to be. But for white-boarding or brainstorming - they can actually be pretty good. Just make sure you’re talking to a “large” model - avoid the minis and even “Flash” models like the plague. They’ve only ever disappointed me. Adding another bit - the multi-modality brings them a step closer to us. Go ahead and use the physical whiteboard, then take a picture of it. Probably just a matter of time before someone hooks up Excalidraw/Miro/Freeform into an LLM (MCPs FTW).
- handfuloflight 1y agoWith the LLM, you're free to ask any question without worrying about what the other party might think of you for asking that question.
- PixyMisa 1y agoWhereas with humans, you'll get valuable pushback for ideas that have already failed.
- handfuloflight 1y agoThe wisdom to know what to ask humans and what to ask the machine.
- andrew_lettuce 1y agoWhich is the Hallmark of a great teammate, but then we won't need them anymore
- handfuloflight 1y agoBut who has truly stress tested their teammates to see how much level of question bombardment they're willing to take? You really haven't, since they can't just generate tokens at the rate and consistency of an LLM.
- bluefirebrand 1y agoIt would be absolutely asinine to bombard your teammates like this and it would be a massive sign that you're not cut out for the work if you had to
- handfuloflight 1y agoI wasn't suggesting we literally bombard teammates. The whole point is that with LLMs, you can explore ideas as deeply as you want without tiring them out or burning social capital. You're conflating this with poor judgment about what to ask humans and when. Taking 'bombard' literally is itself pretty asinine when the real point is about using AI to get thoroughly informed before human collaboration. And if using AI to explore questions deeply is a sign you're 'not cut out for the work,' then you're essentially requiring omniscience, because no one knows everything about every domain, especially as they constantly evolve.
- andy99 1y agoIt's not quite the same but since the dawn of smartphones, I've hated it when you ask a question, as a discussion starter or to get people's views, and some jerk reads off the wikipedia answer as if that's some insight I didn't know was available to me, and basically ruins the discussion. I know talking to an llm is not exactly parallel, but it's a similar idea, it's like talking to the guy with wikipedia instead of batting back and forth ideas and actually thinking about stuff.
- james_marks 1y agoThis has peaked in my circles, thankfully. Now it’s considered a bit of a faux pas to look up an answer during a discussion, for exactly this reason.
- maest 1y agoIs it faux pas to google something too?
- frakkingcylons 1y agoI think the faux pas is regurgitating the first hit you find on StackOverflow or Wikipedia without considering if actually adds something to a discussion.
- zxexz 1y agoIn my personal social circle, it's but faux pas to even take out your phone during a discussion, without a statement why. Not explicitly a rule, it just kinda evolved that way. “Ok, I need to know, I’m gonna check wiki” is enough, and honestly makes everything more engaging — “oh! What does it say? How many times DID Cellini escape execution?. Bring up the talk page that should be fun!”
- skybrian 1y agoIs it a faux pas to say “I have no idea, ask Google?”
- bigiain 1y ago
- avoutos 1y agoMy experience has been similar. I can't escape the feeling that these LLMs are weighted down by their training data. Everything seems to me generically intelligent at best.
- SebastianKra 1y agoThinking things through is desirable. But in many discussions both sides basically "vibe-out" what they think the objective truth is. If it's a fact that can be looked up, just get your phone and don't stall the discussion with guessing games.