@b_rain I've had to explain that LLMs are nothing at all like search engines to friends who are highly educated and, overall, likely smarter and more capable of complex thought than myself.

They're just not computer science educated, and understand computers as good at numbers and large database retrievals.

Which is the exact opposite of #LLMs.

Society isn't ready for them at all.

@larsmb @b_rain They're not smarter and more capable of complex thought than you if they get this wrong.

They've failed to pass a very very low bar for intelligence.

@larsmb @b_rain And indeed lots of supposedly "highly educated" people in lots of specialized fields have this very basic lack of intelligence.

For example there are tons of doctors who take claims by drug companies at face value rather than applying a critical lens, looking for genuinely independent studies, or applying their own understanding (that they theoretically needed to graduate, but probably never had) of the relevant mechanisms of action.

@dalias @b_rain No. This is insulting. I don't take kindly to insults to my friends, so kindly: don't.

They're not experts in tech. They're being willfully misled about the capabilities and functions.

They all understood it when explained, but the systems are not always explained, because then they couldn't be sold.

The term for "one can't spend time to understand everything and must rely on and trust others at some point" is not "unintelligent" but "human".

@larsmb @b_rain OK I'll try to refrain from doing that.

What I'm trying to say is that the answer to "can't understand everything" is not "trust whoever has a loud marketing department" but "assume hype and extraordinary claims false by default especially when they're coming from corporate sources in the same industry that's making the hyped products" and "seek out actual domain expertise as the source of trustworthy information on topics you don't understand".

I deem these principles very basic to critical thinking/intelligence.

@dalias @larsmb @b_rain A few days ago, I started a thread complaining about leftists advocating the use of LLMs. A few people said something along the lines of them not really being leftists if they did.

After that, I saw posts about "vibe coding" from two socialists I've known for decades, both experienced software developers. One had just returned from a trip to Palestine, where he'd been a volunteer on the ground.

I loathe LLMs, but I can't just dismiss these people as fools. They're not.