Comment by dmbche
6 months ago
Simple thought I had reading this:
I've used a tool to do a task today. I used a suction sandblasting machine to remove corrosion from a part.
Without the tool, had I wanted to remove the corrosion, I would've spent all day (if not more) scraping it with sandpaper (is that a tool too? With the skin of my hands then?) - this would have been tedious and could have taken me all day, scraping away millimeter by millimeter.
With the machine, it took me about 3 minutes. I necessitated 4-5 minutes of training to attain this level of expertise.
The worth of this machine is undeniable.
How is it that LLMs are not at all so undeniably efficient? I keep hearing people tell me how they will take everyones job, but it seems like the first faceplant from all the big tech companies.
(Maybe second after Meta's VR stuff)
The difference is that LLMs are not like any other tool. Reasoning by analogy doesn't work when things are sufficiently in-analogous.
For example, people try to compare this LLM tech with the automation of the car manufacturing industry. That analogy is a terrible one, because machines build better cars and are much more reliable than humans.
LLMs don't build better software, they build bad software faster.
Also, as a tool, LLMs discourage understanding in a way that no other tool does.
If every time you pulled the trigger of the sandblaster, there was a 50/50 chance of it spraying paint instead of sand, the worth of the machine would be deniable. Sure, over sufficiently long spans of time, maybe the probabilities of sand outweigh the paint that it puts back on the part. Only your patience determines at which point along that timeline you give up and use a more reliable tool
Beautiful! Thank you.