Comment by ares623
3 days ago
I think a better metaphor is the Library of Babel.
A practically infinite library where both gibberish and truth exist side by side.
The trick is navigating the library correctly. Except in this case you can’t reliably navigate it. And if you happen to stumble upon some “future truth” (i.e. new knowledge), you still need to differentiate it from the gibberish.
So a “crappy” version of the Library of Babel. Very impressive, but the caveats significantly detract from it.
This is where I sit too. Obviously language is an expression of thought but the Library of Babel is a great example that language without intent is just garbage. You got me thinking of reading before the internet. You'd grab a book and internalize the subject, later refining over time with more books, experiments and other forms of conversation. That journey of developing your own model is undervalued in understanding. That first book could of be absolute shit but you couldn't know that.
I've been learning more about roses lately and the amount of information on them varies so much because the world roses live in is equally varied. LLMs make for a better search engine but you still need to develop your own internal models, worse yet - if LLMs continue to be refined off of cul-de-sac conclusions then all the wisdom of the journey is lost both to the consumer and the LLM itself.
It's like a highly compressed version of the Library. You're basically trying to discern real details from compression artifacts.
And the halls and shelves keep shuffling around randomly.