this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024
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TechTakes

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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

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[–] [email protected] -5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (8 children)

The problem is not the LLMs, but what people are trying to do with them.

They are currently spoons, but people are desperately wishing they were katanas.

They work really well for soup, but they can't cut steak. But they're being hyped as super ninja steak knives, and people are getting pissed when they can't cut steak.

If you give them watery, soupy tasks they can do successfully, they can lighten your workload, as long as you're aware of what they are and aren't good at.

What people want LLMs to be able to do, ie. "Steak" tasks:

  • write complex documents

  • apply complex knowledge/rules to a situation

  • Write complex code and create entire programs based on vague description

What LLMs can currently do ie. "Soup" tasks:

  • check this document and fix all spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors

  • summarise this paragraph as dot points

  • write a python program that sorts my photographs into folders based on the year they were taken

Half of Lemmy is hyping katanas, the other half is yelling "Why won't my spoon cut this steak?!! AI is so dumb!!!"

Update: wow, the pure vitriol pouring out of the replies is just stunning. Seems there are a lot of you out there who have, in one way or another, tied your ego very strongly to either the success or failure of AI.

Take a step back, friends, and go outside for a while.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What LLMs can currently do summarise this paragraph as dot points

The entire point here is that they can't?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

they don’t do any of that soup shit reliably either and reading the article might have told you that

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'd offer congratulations on obfuscating a bad claim with a poor analogy, but you didn't even do that very well.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

more of a Trabant analogy than a Corvette analogy

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

Why did this immediately give me a flashback to Donald Trump yelling, "when it comes to great steaks, I've just raised the stakes!"

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

good god this entire post is the most tortured believer whataboutism I've encountered this month and there's extremely strong competition here

are currently spoons, but people are desperately wishing they were katanas

ie. “Steak” tasks

you should make a youtube channel, The Katana Steak-Eater. I'd watch the shit out of that at least one saturday afternoon

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Food analogy

This level of discourse wouldn't fly on 4chan, how is it so popular with LLM fans?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

needs to be a car analogy

  • What people want LLMs to do, i.e. Corvette tasks
  • What LLMs actually do, i.e. Trabant tasks
[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

What LLMs actually do, i.e. Trabant tasks

more of a Power Wheels Barbie Jeep whose battery got left out in the sun too long, but I’ll allow it

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

don't diss the course, this steak's great

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

"spoons and katanas" has got to be the most baby brained analogy. are you a child

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Actually, LLMs are syringes filled with brain-parasite-infested poop