Julia EvansFeb 23

i do not want to get into the business of posting LLM takes but very briefly:

It feels clear to me that some people* are getting value out of using LLMs for programming. Basically see https://simonwillison.net/'s whole blog. If I think about it purely on the basis of "in a vacuum, can this help me write programs", it seems like an exciting technology.

BUT...

(1/?)

(* it also feels clear that some people are NOT getting value out of LLMs, hoping to avoid flamewars about that please)

Show threadJulia EvansFeb 23

(continued from ^)

Google search doesn't work as well anymore because the results are full of LLM-generated articles? I hear about CEOs putting pressure on their teams to produce more faster because they've been told that AI will increase productivity?

it feels sad. even though I find LLMs useful sometimes, with all of the societal impacts it often feels like it isn't actually improving my life.

(2/?)

Show threadKarl

@b0rk About searching getting increasingly worse, there's another side of this I've thought was interesting.

A non-negligible amount of people no longer ask their technical questions on public forums, they ask their favorite chatbot. These questions, and their answers, are not publicly displayed for other people sharing similar struggles to search for.

Feb 23 at 1:20pmWeb
Show threaddavecb 🇨🇦Feb 23
@karl @b0rk That's rather brilliant. I often use LLMs to find things for me, in subject areas where I know if they're lying. I used to use Google, before it degraded. Occasionally (like weekly) I would have a public discussion about a question.
I'm not doing those now, so I'm not contributing.
Show threadiccoFeb 23
@karl @b0rk I'm seeing this more and more at work and it makes me sad.
Show threadEnno RehlingFeb 23
@karl @b0rk Stack Overflow seems to suffer the most from this.
Show threadDavid BeazleyFeb 23
@enno @karl @b0rk And anyone trying to teach courses.
Show threadBoxOfSnooFeb 23
@karl @b0rk yes excellent point. Although knowledge was already becoming volatile with everyone switching to Discord instead of forums the last few years.
Show threadKarlFeb 23

@boxofsnoo Well, for what it's worth, I see Discord as a IRC replacement, which already enabled similar volatile discussions.

That being said, Discord is hugely more popular, so perhaps it amplified the issue.

Show threadevanaFeb 23

@karl @b0rk one of the particular benefits that Stack Overflow had was not the initial answers, but the commentary, refinement, and background references added to the question over time, including "back in 2014, this was the best answer. In 2019, <new tool> generally replaces this solution with.... Support for this started with $version".

(e.g. ECMA modules and general browser advances, packaging tools in other libraries, standards advancement, library evolution, etc)

Show threadrcgj_OxPhysFeb 24
@karl @b0rk maybe worse, maybe just also bad: the chatbots (even the same one) will tell them different things for the same question. different wrong things. uncommon misconceptions.
Show threadJeffrey Rogers 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿Feb 24
@karl @b0rk Long, long ago, companies supported their products and were the first port of call for support. Then they realised that they could just dump customers/users and get them to support each other for free. Then customers got chastised more and more by arrogant forum ‘sentinels’ for not giving enough detail and not knowing enough background stuff generally. Contempt as a service. I’ve not used a chatbot but suspect they don’t do that.
Show threadMichael T BabcockFeb 25
@karl @b0rk see also discord before AI... No preservation of knowledge
Show threadKarlFeb 25
@mikebabcock @b0rk I see Discord as having a similar effect to IRC, perhaps worse as it's become popular but it was there before.