Greg WilsonI used to think that when I retired, I would spend my time writing short tutorials on topics I was interested in as a way to learn more about them myself. I've now been unemployed for three months, and while I've written some odds and ends, it's not nearly as fulfilling as I expected because I _know_ that most people aren't going to read a three-thousand word exposition of discrete event simulation: they're going to ask an LLM, and get something pseudo-personalized in return. 1/3
To be clear, I don't think this is inherently a bad thing: ChatGPT and Claude have helped me build https://github.com/gvwilson/asimpy and fix bugs in https://github.com/gvwilson/sim, and I believe I've learned more, and more quickly, from interacting with them than I would on my own. But they do make me feel a bit like a typesetter who suddenly finds the world is full of laser printers and WYSIWYG authoring tools. 2/3
I believe I can write a better explanation than an LLM, but (a) I can only write one, not a dozen or a hundred with slight variations to address specific learners' questions or desires, and (b) it takes me days to do somewhat better what an LLM can do in minutes. I believe I go off the rails less often than an LLM (though some of my former learners may disagree), but is what I produce better *enough* to outweigh the speed and personalization that LLMs offer? If not, what do I do instead? 3/3
Cam
Benjamin Geer@gvwilson I have no interest in reading anything written by an LLM, and I enjoy reading texts written by humans who know their subject well, even if the text isn’t perfectly tailored to my needs. I’ve never written for “most people”, but for people who might be interested in what I have to say.
Jon Udell@benjamingeer @gvwilson Maybe try inviting your readers to explore choral explanations based on your tutorials, perhaps providing some persona-based learner-appropriate prompts?
If nothing else it could be an interesting experiment, I would love to know the outcome.
Jonathan Schofield@gvwilson keep writing human thoughts because it’s the right thing to do. The great unravelling will follow its own course anyway
allison@gvwilson please please write the tutorial. it will add to the richness of the world. besides, i don't trust an llm to give accurate information, especially on difficult/niche technical topics, and i don't think i'm alone in this. also i don't want my learning materials to be "personalized," i want them to have a specific, contextualized point of view.
Isu 🐲@gvwilson I do not think that comparing yourself to what an LLM might do is the right way to see these activities.
You are learning new stuff (also through writing about them), it should be fun to you and the write-up is more or less just a side-product to your journey. Your learning is orders of magnitude better for the planet than an LLM "learning". And preferring a general human-written explanation over a "personalized" LLM-written one with all its associated costs is also way superior.
Meznor UNGRATEFUL MIDDLE POWER@gvwilson I think the pivot for you will be to target specific types of learners who understand the value that a person with lived years of experience can offer them, not the lowest-common denominator learners who want a quick fix on some topic. LLMs produce fast junk food; humans prepare nourishing meals.
Don't give all of it away for free (it's not even possible - your knowledge and wisdom/heuristics you've built over time are coded in your brain and not scrapable by machines).
@gvwilson more and more I'm convinced that those of us who have been avoiding these false gods pushed by the worst people in the world are going to become the most desired talent in the near future.
David Beazley@gvwilson I'm trying to decide which is worse: having no work at all or struggling to find steadily diminishing work. The problem with the latter being constant nagging of the question of whether to continue to drag it out even longer or to simply call it "done", accept, and move on.
@gvwilson I'm finding myself pretty close to the edge on the latter right now. I recently applied to a grad program in possible preparation for it.
Dustin Mitchell
Chris Martin@gvwilson People who only consume exactly what they're looking for can't learn the answer to any question they didn't think to ask.
Matthew.Dodwell@gvwilson have you tested the theory that an llm would provide a good answer? I don't believe it would.
I am interested in building a coherent useful mental model of a subject. Llm's don't operate at the model level so this requires reading thoughts from expert human teachers, such as you.
Also, an Llm's shallow summary (or mashed together summary) doesn't help me grow or understand deeply.
Zanna@gvwilson I think those are really important questions facing writers, coders, and creatives in general today: what place does my work have in the world where inferior but often good enough LLM-generated content is fast and more convenient? How do I spend my time wisely?
Depth of knowledge often pays off for me in making informed design choices or troubleshooting in coding. Previously I built that up as a consequence of writing each line of code myself and reading the docs or blogs when I ran across surprises. Learning will require more deliberate choices I think in the world of LLMs, where it is expected to move faster and spend less time in the details.
Svante
Castedo Ellerman@gvwilson Don't forget Wikipedia. Your statement about LLMs has already been true for Wikipedia: "... most people aren't going to read a three-thousand word exposition of discrete event simulation: they're going to " ... click on the Wikipedia page on the topic.
Choosing what audience to reach and through what new kind of channel is challenging (e.g. spoken dialog vs printed page, printed page vs web page, blog page vs Wikipedia, web page vs ChatBot response).