Makers Knowledge, "in the age of LLMs we don't understand what we make"

by RandomWorker • 1 year ago

2 2 1 year ago

PaulHoule• 1 year ago

I don't know if there is that deterministic relationship between making things and understanding how they work.

For instance people made fire before they understood much about chemistry at all. In the process of thinking about it really systematically they got this wrong idea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory

RandomWorker• 1 year ago

That might be true but at the level of understanding that the Greeks had of things - making fire does give you a lot. Flint, dry grass, fuel source wet versus dry wood, wind and soil conditions- how to deal with them, once you have a fire how do you control, manipulate it, and keep it going. All those things are learned through making fire. Then you can also piece together which fuels work best, that leads to more understanding and experimentation followed by more learning. I think it’s what I take away from this article. I think those ancient people know more and understood more about keeping a fire going through the night than i ever will.

When you use an LLM and don’t have any understanding what you asking about it presents a huge problem. I see more and more people just using what it provides. And then when asked about it they can’t defend it because the didn’t read it or even tried to understand it. This is in proposals and business cases worth multiple millions.

Makers Knowledge, "in the age of LLMs we don't understand what we make"

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