Simon Willison

Another note in favour of "electric bicycles for the mind" as an analogy for large language models: nobody should ride an electric bicycle without first learning how to use it

And how to ride it safely, both for themselves and for other people

Feb 25, 2023 at 1:09amWeb
Show threadSimon WillisonFeb 25, 2023

As @timbray points out this only works if learning to ride a regular bike is part of it - there's very little learning curve between a regular bike and an e-bike

So it's flawed as an analogy because that distinction distracts from it

Show threadDrew BreunigFeb 25, 2023
@simon @timbray I think the jump from bike to car fits better, if only because nearly all users of cars don't understand how they work and the mechanisms are largely hidden.
Show threadSimon WillisonFeb 25, 2023
@dbreunig @timbray you need to pass a test and get a license to drive a car: you don't (currently) need to do that to ride an e-bike or use a large language model
Show threadDrew BreunigFeb 25, 2023
@simon @timbray Sure, and both a car and bike don't randomly turn or accelerate if you aren't operating with perfect clarity. I'm not sure the 'bicycle for the mind'-type metaphor maps cleanly here.
Show threadAlper Çuğun-GscheidelFeb 25, 2023
@simon @timbray Maybe LLMs are more like an electric scooter for the mind: easy to get on, fun, convenient, annoying for others and huge risk of injury
Show threadAlan BragginsFeb 25, 2023
@alper @simon @timbray
Lots of confounding factors, but the risk might actually not be huge compared with bikes.
https://www.moveelectric.com/e-scooters/new-study-finds-e-scooters-are-five-times-safer-bikes
New study finds e-scooters are five times safer than bikes | Move Electric

Show threadAlper Çuğun-GscheidelFeb 25, 2023
@armb Just that drunk people break their collarbones with them and drug dealers whoosh over the pavements.
Show threadTim BrayFeb 25, 2023
@simon Not with you on this one… I never did any study or manual-reading, just switched from a regular bike to an e-bike between one commuting day and the next and suddenly everything was so much faster and less painful. I don't think the LLM analogy holds water.
Show threadSimon WillisonFeb 25, 2023
@timbray to clarify, I'm including learning to ride a non-electric bike as part of this
Show threadJustin MaxwellFeb 25, 2023

@simon @timbray mastodon is showing me this conversation so i hope it's ok if i butt in

if i am reading this correctly...

the biggest assholes in ebike world are those who don't know the rules of non-ebike-world, the 30mph in bike lane folks w/o 'on your left' warnings, the ones trashing trails, etc.

w/r/t media literacy, understanding how the LLM works, understanding how it generates output, all that. = your mind should be critical and understand the model first.

Show threadPhilip BraggFeb 25, 2023
@simon I don't think it's a correct analogy, but it can *appear* correct a lot of the time and that's my big problem with LLM stuff. There's no "show your working" and no indication of when they're forming replies from what I think of as noise. Of course, if you really know how to ride the electric mind bicycle you can get quality responses, this was even true of the infinitely more crude MegaHAL, where part of the fun was knowing how to manipulate it into being funny and looking clever.