The difference, it seems, is that I’ve been looking at these tools and thinking how I can use them in creative ways to accomplish a goal - and not just treating it like a magic button that solves all problems without fine-tuning.
To give you a few examples:
- There is something called the Picture Superiority Effect, which states that humans remember images better than merely words. I have been interested in applying this to language learning – imagine a unique image for each word you’re learning in German, for example. A few years ago I was about to hire an illustrator to make these images for me, but now with Midjourney or other image creators, I can functionally make unlimited unique images for $30 a month. This is a massive new development that wasn’t possible before.
- I have been working on a list of AI tools that would be useful for “thinking” or analyzing a piece of writing. Things like: analyze the assumptions in this piece; find related concepts with genealogical links; check if this idea is original or not; rephrase this argument as a series of Socratic dialogues. And so on. This kind of thing has been immensely helpful in evaluating my own personal essays and ideas, and prior to AI tools it, again, was not really possible unless I hired someone to critique my work.
The key for both of these example use cases is that I have absolutely no expectation of perfection. I don’t expect the AI images or text to be free of errors. The point is to use them as messy, creative tools that open up possibilities and unconsidered angles, not to do all the work for you.
Either that or different people have different views on life, tech, &c. If you're not going through life as some sort of minmax rpg not using LLM to "optimise" every single aspects of your life is perfectly fine. I don't need a LLM to summarise an article, I want to read it during my 15 min coffee time in the morning. I don't need an LLM to tell me how my text should be rewritten to look like the statistical average of a good text...
> Either that or different people have different views on life, tech, &c.
Most definitely. When stable diffusion came out, I recall AI enthusiasts gushing and saying things like it was "creating the most beautiful art they've ever seen," which just made me scratch my head and wonder what they were smoking.
> If you're not going through life as some sort of minmax rpg not using LLM to "optimise" every single aspects of your life is perfectly fine. I don't need a LLM to summarise an article, I want to read it during my 15 min coffee time in the morning.
Exactly. Some people want to actually understand stuff, in their own minds, and some people seem to be fine teetering on top of an output machine they don't really understand.
On that summarization thing specifically, pre-LLM there were services that did that (my manager subscribed me to one once), and it never clicked with me. Why would I waste my time consuming such shallow stuff? I never felt it had any impact, it felt like fluff to make it feel like you were learning something when you weren't. Which is ironic, because the people who seem enthusiastic about that stuff are under the false impression that everything is like three bullet points wrapped in fluff.
> I don't need an LLM to tell me how my text should be rewritten to look like the statistical average of a good text...
Especially since I roll my eyes at ChatGPT-ese.