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Today's Large Language Models are Essentially BS Machines (quandyfactory.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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

Basically the problem is point 3.

You obviously know some of what it's telling you is inaccurate already. There is the possibility it's all bullshit. Granted a lot of it probably isn't, but it will tell you the bullshit with the exact same level of confidence as actual facts... because it doesn't know Galois theory and it isn't teaching it to you, it's simply stringing sentences together in response to your queries.

If a human were doing this we would rightly proclaim the human a bad teacher that didn't know their subject, and that you should go somewhere else to get your knowledge. That same critique should apply to the LLM as well.

That said it definitely can be a useful tool. I just would never fully trust knowledge I gained from an LLM. All of it needs to be reviewed for correctness by a human.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That same critique should apply to the LLM as well.

No, it shouldn't. Instead, you should compare it to the alternatives you have on hand.

The fact is,

Using LLM was a better experience for me then reading a textbook.
And it was also a better experience for me then watching recorded video lectures.

So, if I have to learn something, I have enough background to spot hallucinations, and I don't have a teacher (having graduated college, that's always true), I would consider using it, because it's better then the alternatives.

I just would never fully trust knowledge I gained from an LLM

There are plenty of cases where you shouldn't fully trust knowledge you gained from a human, too.

And there are, actually, cases where you can trust the knowledge gained from an LLM. Not because it sounds confident, but because you know how it behaves.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Obviously you should do what you think is right, so I mean, I'm not telling you you're living wrong. Do what you want.

The reason to not trust a human is different from the reasons not to trust an LLM. An LLM is not revealing to you knowledge it understands. Or even knowledge it doesn't understand. It's literally completing sentences based on word likelihood. It doesn't understand any of what it's saying, and none of it is rooted in any knowledge of the subject of any kind.

I find that concerning in terms of learning from it. But if it worked for you, then go for it.