4 ms·

The question is does that even matter You may argue what if LLMs are inaccessible but that’s like teachers saying “you won’t always have a calculator”

walt_grata 3mo ago
Sure it does. I still nees to know the correct mathematics to type into the calculator and the calculator is deterministic. If you don't understand it without the llm explaining it, how can you be sure you actually understand it? How can you catch mistakes made due to it being non-deterministic? Ask another llm? Same problem
bluefirebrand 3mo ago
An LLM always being accessible is not my problem My problem is that filtering all of human creativity and expression through an LLM is ugly
ClikeX 3mo ago
> that’s like teachers saying “you won’t always have a calculator They were right, though. For one, you still need to now what kind of equation to put into the calculator. If you don't know the concepts, what are you going to calculate. Real life situations don't actually spell out neat textbook questions. And just take a look throughout the day how many quick maths you do subconsciously. Just things like cooking or grocery shopping have tons of moments where you just do the calculation in your head. And you can do that because you've learned how and when to do that. It's not just a matter of "What if it's inaccessible", but also "Do you want to be dependent on your phone even more". Are just going to walk around with your phone on voice mode narrating your life into your LLM to let it tell you what to do?
- ssl-3 3mo ago
  > They were right, though. They were not. I'm not dead yet so I suppose there's still a chance, but so far in decades of living life I've always had calculators when I've needed them. > For one, you still need to now what kind of equation to put into the calculator. That's a very different construct. Math concepts don't care how the arithmetic is performed. > If you don't know the concepts, what are you going to calculate. If you don't know the concepts, then what kind of arithmetic are you going to perform with anything -- whether the mind's eye, pencil and paper, a sliderule, or a pocket supercomputer?
  - rmunn 3mo ago
    I have a calculator (and many other tools, of course) in my pocket at all times, now... and yet I don't pull it out very often. Because I can add $1.99 + $3.49 faster in my head ($2 plus $3.50 minus two cents = $5.48) than I could get the result by pulling out the phone, swiping my access pattern, tapping the calculator app, and punching in the results. Heck, even if I had a dedicated calculator that only required pulling it out and pressing an On button, I'd still come up with the result faster than I could punch the buttons. It's definitely worth it for kids to invest the time it takes to learn the little shortcuts involved in mental math: that effort gets repaid many times over during the course of a normal human lifetime.
    - ssl-3 3mo ago
      I do simple math like that in my head all the time, despite having had special permission to use a calculator in school. It was the same back then: Some quick mental math was often faster than using a calculator, so that's what I used first. The calculator came second. I reject all notions that these are mutually-exclusive concepts.
      - rmunn 3mo ago
        > I reject all notions that these are mutually-exclusive concepts. Agreed; just because I "rarely" pull out the calculator doesn't mean I never use it. Sometimes my wife asks me "If this cake recipe calls for filling a 9-inch pan with batter, and makes 3 layers, but I have an 8.5-inch pan and I'm making two layers, then how much should I reduce the recipe?" The π terms cancel each other out in that math, but I still can't do (4.25×4.25×2) / (4.5×4.5×3) in my head faster than I can punch it into the calculator. (It comes out to about 0.59, BTW, meaning she should use either half or two-thirds of the recipe depending on if she wants a slightly thinner or thicker cake). Bringing this back to the broader LLM-related discussion, the lesson I took away from the Fable kerfluffle was "the model will usually, but not always, be available." You might have an Internet connection hiccup, you might have hit your subscription usage credits for the week and not be willing to pay API pricing, the model might even be taken away from you. (Most of which are problems you won't face if you run a local model, but that's a different discussion). So just as it's important to learn mental math even when you have a calculator as backup, it's important to retain the skill to solve many categories of problems without the LLM, even if you still reach for the LLM for the categories of problems that it can solve faster than you can.

walt_grata 3mo ago

Sure it does. I still nees to know the correct mathematics to type into the calculator and the calculator is deterministic. If you don't understand it without the llm explaining it, how can you be sure you actually understand it? How can you catch mistakes made due to it being non-deterministic? Ask another llm? Same problem

bluefirebrand 3mo ago

An LLM always being accessible is not my problem My problem is that filtering all of human creativity and expression through an LLM is ugly

ClikeX 3mo ago

> that’s like teachers saying “you won’t always have a calculator They were right, though. For one, you still need to now what kind of equation to put into the calculator. If you don't know the concepts, what are you going to calculate. Real life situations don't actually spell out neat textbook questions. And just take a look throughout the day how many quick maths you do subconsciously. Just things like cooking or grocery shopping have tons of moments where you just do the calculation in your head. And you can do that because you've learned how and when to do that. It's not just a matter of "What if it's inaccessible", but also "Do you want to be dependent on your phone even more". Are just going to walk around with your phone on voice mode narrating your life into your LLM to let it tell you what to do?

ssl-3 3mo ago
> They were right, though. They were not. I'm not dead yet so I suppose there's still a chance, but so far in decades of living life I've always had calculators when I've needed them. > For one, you still need to now what kind of equation to put into the calculator. That's a very different construct. Math concepts don't care how the arithmetic is performed. > If you don't know the concepts, what are you going to calculate. If you don't know the concepts, then what kind of arithmetic are you going to perform with anything -- whether the mind's eye, pencil and paper, a sliderule, or a pocket supercomputer?
- rmunn 3mo ago
  I have a calculator (and many other tools, of course) in my pocket at all times, now... and yet I don't pull it out very often. Because I can add $1.99 + $3.49 faster in my head ($2 plus $3.50 minus two cents = $5.48) than I could get the result by pulling out the phone, swiping my access pattern, tapping the calculator app, and punching in the results. Heck, even if I had a dedicated calculator that only required pulling it out and pressing an On button, I'd still come up with the result faster than I could punch the buttons. It's definitely worth it for kids to invest the time it takes to learn the little shortcuts involved in mental math: that effort gets repaid many times over during the course of a normal human lifetime.
  - ssl-3 3mo ago
    I do simple math like that in my head all the time, despite having had special permission to use a calculator in school. It was the same back then: Some quick mental math was often faster than using a calculator, so that's what I used first. The calculator came second. I reject all notions that these are mutually-exclusive concepts.
    - rmunn 3mo ago
      > I reject all notions that these are mutually-exclusive concepts. Agreed; just because I "rarely" pull out the calculator doesn't mean I never use it. Sometimes my wife asks me "If this cake recipe calls for filling a 9-inch pan with batter, and makes 3 layers, but I have an 8.5-inch pan and I'm making two layers, then how much should I reduce the recipe?" The π terms cancel each other out in that math, but I still can't do (4.25×4.25×2) / (4.5×4.5×3) in my head faster than I can punch it into the calculator. (It comes out to about 0.59, BTW, meaning she should use either half or two-thirds of the recipe depending on if she wants a slightly thinner or thicker cake). Bringing this back to the broader LLM-related discussion, the lesson I took away from the Fable kerfluffle was "the model will usually, but not always, be available." You might have an Internet connection hiccup, you might have hit your subscription usage credits for the week and not be willing to pay API pricing, the model might even be taken away from you. (Most of which are problems you won't face if you run a local model, but that's a different discussion). So just as it's important to learn mental math even when you have a calculator as backup, it's important to retain the skill to solve many categories of problems without the LLM, even if you still reach for the LLM for the categories of problems that it can solve faster than you can.