ByteOnBikesCritical thinking
Idk, I think we’re back to “it depends on how you use it”. Once upon a time, the same was said of the internet in general, because people could just go online and copy and paste shit and share answers and stuff, but the Internet can also just be a really great educational resource in general. I think that using LLMs in non load-bearing “trust but verify” type roles (study buddies, brainstorming, very high level information searching) is actually really useful. One of my favorite uses of ChatGPT is when I have a concept so loose that I don’t even know the right question to Google, I can just kind of chat with the LLM and potentially refine a narrower, more google-able subject.
trust but verify
The thing is that LLM is a professional bullshitter. It is actually trained to produce text that can fool ordinary person into thinking that it was produced by a human. The facts come 2nd.
I don’t trust LLMs for anything based on facts or complex reasoning. I’m a lawyer and any time I try asking an LLM a legal question, I get an answer ranging from “technically wrong/incomplete, but I can see how you got there” to “absolute fabrication.”
I actually think the best current use for LLMs is for itinerary planning and organizing thoughts. They’re pretty good at creating coherent, logical schedules based on sets of simple criteria as well as making communications more succinct (although still not perfect).
The only substantial uses i have for it are occasional blurbs of R code for charts, rewording a sentence, or finding a precise word when I can’t think of it
NielsBohronIt’s decent at summarizing large blocks of text and pretty good for rewording things in a diplomatic/safe way. I used it the other day for work when I had to write a “staff appreciation” blurb and I couldn’t come up with a reasonable way to take my 4 sentences of aggressively pro-union rhetoric and turn it into one sentence that comes off pro-union but not anti-capitalist (edit: it still needed a editing pass-through to put it in my own voice and add some details, but it definitely got me close to what I needed)
I’d say it’s good at things you don’t need to be good
For assignments I’m consciously half-assing, or readings i don’t have the time to thoroughly examine, sure, it’s perfect
exactly. For writing emails that will likely never be read by anyone in more than a cursory scan, for example. When I’m composing text, I can’t turn off my fixation on finding the perfect wording, even when I know intellectually that “good enough is good enough.” And “it’s not great, but it gets the message across” is about the only strength of ChatGPT at this point.