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Thesis: Interesting work is less amenable to the use of AI

(remark.ing)
175 points koch | 3 comments | 06 Jul 25 21:01 UTC | HN request time: 4.79s | source
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briandw ◴[07 Jul 25 12:54 UTC] No.44489892[source]▶
I feel much more confident that I can take on a project in a domain that im not very familiar with. Ive been digging into llvm ir and I had not prior experience with it. ChatGPT is a much better guide to getting started than the documentation, which is very low quality.
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loloquwowndueo ◴[07 Jul 25 13:11 UTC] No.44490046[source]▶
Careful - if you’re not familiar with the domain how are you going to spot when the LLM gives you suboptimal or even outright wrong answers?
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1. briandw ◴[07 Jul 25 14:19 UTC] No.44490642[source]▶
Just like anything else, stackoverflow, advice from a coworker or expert. If it doesn’t work, it will become clear that it’s not fixing your problem.
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2. loloquwowndueo ◴[07 Jul 25 17:29 UTC] No.44492657[source]▶
If all you’re doing is ping-ponging back and forth between an expert and an LLM, then what’s your value ?
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3. briandw ◴[07 Jul 25 18:15 UTC] No.44493160[source]▶
Don't think what I described was ping-ponging. But if you want to see it that way, go ahead.

To clarify my process. 1) I have a problem in a new domain that I'm stuck on. 2) I work with the LLM to discuss my problem, think about solutions, get things to try. Not unlike StackOverflow or digging through documentation. However this process is much faster and I learn more without being called stupid by random people on SO (or HN). 3) The problem is fixed and I move on, or back to 1 or try something else.

The value here is that I have a problem to solve and I'm seeing it through to the end. I know what good looks like and have the agency and attention span to get there. The LLM doesn't and likely won't for quite some time.