Comment by ninjagoo
2 days ago
> I've been feeling more and more that generative AI represents the average of all human knowledge.
Have you tried the paid versions of frontier models? They certainly do not feel like they spew the average of all human knowledge. It's not uncommon for them to find and interpret the cutting edge of papers in any of the domains that I've asked them questions about.
Yup. And they all sound like slop. Read the papers, comprehend the papers, don't make someone else's computer do it for you.
Every scientist I ever met (and myself included) has a backlog of papers to read that never seems to shrink. It really is not trivial to stay up to date on research, even in niche fields, considering the huge volume of research that is being produced.
It is not uncommon for me to read a recently published review and find 2-3 interesting papers in the lot. Plus the daily Google scholar alerts. It can definitely be beneficial to have a LLM summarize a paper. Of course, at this point, one should definitely decide "is this worth reading more carefully?" and actually read at least some parts if needed.
Anti-tech contrarian sentiment happens with every new technology. Someone older than you probably said the same thing about the internet.
Yep. Even windows, the most widely used OS on the planet has a fringe group of contrarians still today. Amazing.
2 replies →
And they were right, the internet does make us dumber and less human.
True, and they were right about it when they said that. They wouldn't be right anymore, because the Internet has evolved. The same might happen to LLMs, but currently one would be right to call LLM output "slop".
1 reply →
What's sad is that there's so much of that at this site. This page in particular is a disaster, and what we're actually seeing a lot of at HN is claims that real humans are bots. And the people who make these accusations are certain of their validity.
2 replies →
> Read the papers, comprehend the papers, don't make someone else's computer do it for you
Why not?
Personally, I don't have the specialized knowledge, nor the time needed, to read and understand papers outside my own 2-3 domains. LLMs do. And I appreciate what they can do for me. They do it better, faster, and more accurately than most 'popular science', provide better coverage and also provide the ability to interact with the material to any degree or depth that I care to, better than any article.
It would be silly to pass up this capability to make my life better simply because random folks on the Internet disparage the quality of the output (contrary to my own experience) and make hand-wavy points about 'someone else's computer) while offering no credible or useful alternative :)
How do you evaluate the quality of a summary of a paper you do not have the knowledge to read and understand?
1 reply →
I wonder if you have asked the same LLMs to explain or summarize a paper in one of your fields and see if it still makes sense.
It could be that the LLMs are good at stringing words together in a way that seems reasonable when you are not an expert yourself, much like people from other fields seem very knowledgeable until you compare many of them or hear/see them talk with each other.
2 replies →