To go deeper: some animals act curiously, others with fear, but only a few of them understand what the mirror does and use it to inspect themselves.
To go deeper: some animals act curiously, others with fear, but only a few of them understand what the mirror does and use it to inspect themselves.
There’s been an extensive marketing campaign to convince people that LLMs are intelligent. I wouldn’t call someone a subhuman for assuming there is some truth to that.
Of those that understand what an LLM is, I think you can divide them into two groups, the honest, and the dishonest. Honest people see no use in a bullshit generator, a lying machine. They see it as a perversion of technology. Dishonest people have no such objection. They might even truly see intelligence in the machine, as its outputs don’t differ substantially from their own. If you view language as a means to get what you want, rather than a means to convey factual information, then lying is acceptable, desirable, intelligent. It would be difficult for such a person to differentiate between coherent but meaningless bullshit, and a machine with agency making false statements to pursue its own goals.
I disagree about the dichotomy. I think you can (1) understand what LLMs actually are. (2) See the value of such technology.
In both cases being factual (not being deceived) and not being malicious (not attempting to deceive others)
I think a reasonable use of these tools is as a “sidekick” (you being the main character). Some tasks can be assigned to it so you save some time, but the thinking and the actual mental model of what is being done shall always be your responsibility.
For example, LLMs are good as an interface to quickly lookup within manuals, books, clarify specific concepts, or find the proper terms for a vague idea (so that you can research the topic using the appropriate terms)
Of course, this is just an opinion. 100% open to discussion.
Marketing is a valid use for AI (because bullshit was always thewod anyway)
Wait, let’s hear OP out.