3 ms·
Like apples to oranges. LLMs are (apparently) massively used to get information about topics in the real world. Novels aren't going to be much help there. Jour
by Freak_NL 7mo ago
Like apples to oranges.
LLMs are (apparently) massively used to get information about topics in the real world. Novels aren't going to be much help there. Journalism, particularly in written form, provides a fount of facts presented from different angles, as well as opinions, and it was all there free for the taking…
Wikipedia provides the scantest summary of that, fora and social media give you banter, fake news, summaries of news, and a whole lot of shaky opinions, at best. Novels give you the foundations of language, but in terms of knowledge nothing much beyond what the novel is about.
- olalonde 7mo agoLLMs can get up to date information from primary sources - no journalists required.
- freedomben 7mo agoPrimary sources can and often are, very biased. Journalists are (supposed to be) doing fact checks and gathering multiple sources from all sides. Modern journalism is in a terrible state, but still important. Imagine if all info about Facebook came from Facebook...
- PopAlongKid 7mo agoI don't understand how LLMs can ask questions at a press conference.
- olalonde 7mo agoStartup idea right there.
- AnthonyMouse 7mo agoTo begin with, your premise is that the only primary sources are press conferences and that press conferences only provide information in response to questions. But even taking it literally, isn't that one of the things LLMs could actually do? You're essentially asking how a text generator could generate text. The real question is whether the questions would be any good, but the answer isn't necessarily no.
- casey2 7mo agoI'm sure any competent agent would send an email, or just ask as an aside in a chat.
- none2585 7mo agoI don't think an LLM can have secret human sources that provide them with confidential information anonymously. Not all news shows up on Twitter.
- miki123211 7mo agoYou don't need the secret human sources any more. You used to need them, because journalists had the distribution and the sources didn't. In a word of printed newspapers, you couldn't get your story distributed nationally (much less worldwide) without the help of a journalist, doubly so if you wanted to stay anonymous. Nowadays, you just make a Substack and there's that. See that recent expose on the Delve fraud as just one example. No journalists were harmed in the making of that article.
- casey2 7mo agoThis is technically trivial. Most data comes froms chats these days, not the web. Start thinking!
- ajam1507 7mo agoThe primary source for most news is journalism.
- NiloCK 7mo agoIn context, primary source means the subject of the article (the thing the journalist is writing about). Journalism is by definition a secondary source. (Notwithstanding edge cases like articles reporting directly on the news industry itself.)
- ajam1507 7mo agoJournalism is absolutely not by definiton a secondary source. If a journalist is on location covering a flood, for example, they are the primary source. A journalist conducting an interview would also be a primary source.