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> Creating AI models is hard, but working with them is simple I'm not disagreeing with the overall post, but from closely observing end users of LLM-backed pro
by isoprophlex 1y ago
> Creating AI models is hard, but working with them is simple
I'm not disagreeing with the overall post, but from closely observing end users of LLM-backed products for a while now, I think this needs nuance.
The average joe, be it a developer, random business type, a school teacher or your mum, is very bad at telling an llm what it should do.
- In general people are bad at expressing their thoughts and desires clearly. Frontier LLMs are still mostly sycophantic, so in absence of clear instructions they will make up things. People are prone to treating the LLM as a mind reader, without critically assessing if their prompts are self-contained and sufficiently detailed.
- People are pretty bad at estimating what kind of data an LLM understands well. In general data literacy, and basic data manipulation skills, are beneficial when the use case requires operating on data besides natural language prompts. This is not a given across user bases.
- Very few people have a sensible working model of what goes on in an autoregressive black box, so they have no intuition on managing context
User education still has a long way to go, and IMO is a big determining factor in people getting any use at all from the shiny new AI stuff that gets slathered onto every single software product these days
- dayvid 1y agoPrompt engineering is a transitory phase. Embedding it into existing tools so the 80-90% of regular prompt patterns can be worked into the UI (or contextual UI designed around how a user uses the product) is the next step
- isoprophlex 1y agoYeah if you mean that LLMs are used with UIs on top that allow "too much magic", I agree. Free form chat is pretty terrible. People just want the thing to (smartly) take actions. One or two buttons that do the thing, no prompting involved, is much less complicated.
- gubicle 1y agoThe whole point is the prompt (+ a static set of (system)prompts). If your whole function as a human is clicking one of a set of buttons to trigger an AI action, then you are automate-able in a few lines of code (and the AI is better than you at deciding which button to click anyway (supposedly)). There are like thousands wrappers around LLMs masquerading as AI apps for specialized usecases, but the real performance of these apps is really only bottlenecked by the LLM performance, and their UIs generally only get in the way of the direct LLM access/feedback loop. To work with LLMs effectively you need to understand how to craft good prompts, and how to read/debug the responses.
- dayvid 1y agoI mean if you’re building for a consumer and you know what most of them may prompt, you can interface it with the UI so it’s not a game of hope you’re good at prompting because if not your experience isn’t going to be good. You could still offer a text panel if it fails
- gubicle 1y agoWhat does 'interface it with the UI' mean though? How does adding buttons make it easier for the user to work with the AI? The whole point is that users can control it using the most natural and ubiquitous way possible - through natural language. Yeah, it often makes sense to adjust the user's prompt, add system/wrapper prompts, etc. But that's not really related to UI..
- dayvid 1y agoA lot of people don't know how to ask for what they want or ask it in different ways. If you can normalize this, you can normalize results. When consistent results are more important, introducing guardrails via UI or a guided flow is more relevant
- wppick 1y agoThe higher your executive function the more use you will get out of LLMs. This is really the skill you should be testing for in interviews now. Not letting a candidate use AI for their interview is not a useful evaluation anymore. I want to see how you use it. Do you prompt well, how much are you trusting and verifying what it outputs
- procaryote 1y agoIs "executive function" the thing you mean here? You need a lot of self control to write good prompts?
- arthurcolle 1y agoExecutive functions just means exerting control over things. It can be self-control, but that can mean control over one's focus
- procaryote 1y agoYeah, I'm just struggling a bit to see how that is the key thing to write a good prompt
- wppick 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_functions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_functions "Executive functions include basic cognitive processes such as attentional control, cognitive inhibition, inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. Higher-order executive functions require the simultaneous use of multiple basic executive functions and include planning and fluid intelligence (e.g., reasoning and problem-solving)." Executive function is not just emotional control. It's higher levels of thinking. It's the E in CEO. AI is really just an amplifier, just like how a calculator in one person's hand could be much powerful than in someone else's
- kilna 1y agoIt takes good self control to not go down rabbit holes writing the wrong prompts, or prompts that produce interesting or pleasing results without necessarily solving the problem you intended to solve. Sycophantic LLMs are an addiction engine, in addition to being a guess-based autocomplete for thoughts.
- dgfitz 1y agoIs this a “you’re holding it wrong, you idiot” post?
- isoprophlex 1y agoNo no definitely not meant to be condescending; our ui paradigms don't align with users that just want to get stuff done. See what dayvid writes, too. and everyone's being sold on this tech being super magic but to some questions there is an irreducible complexity that you have to deal with, and that still takes effort.