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378 points todsacerdoti | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.609s | source
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xnorswap ◴[] No.44984684[source]
I won't say too much, but I recently had an experience where it was clear that when talking with a colleague, I was getting back chat GPT output. I felt sick, like this just isn't how it should be. I'd rather have been ignored.

It didn't help that the LLM was confidently incorrect.

The smallest things can throw off an LLM, such as a difference in naming between configuration and implementation.

In the human world, you can with legacy stuff get in a situation where "everyone knows" that the foo setting is actually the setting for Frob, but with an LLM it'll happily try to configure Frob or worse, try to implement Foo from scratch.

I'd always rather deal with bad human code than bad LLM code, because you can get into the mind of the person who wrote the bad human code. You can try to understand their misunderstanding. You can reason their faulty reasoning.

With bad LLM code, you're dealing with a soul-crushing machine that cannot (yet) and will not (yet) learn from its mistakes, because it does not believe it makes mistakes ( no matter how apologetic it gets ).

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whalesalad ◴[] No.44984944[source]
A notion comment on a story the other day started with, "you're absolutely right" and that is when I had to take a moment outside for myself.
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1. gjsman-1000 ◴[] No.44984983[source]
I swear that in 3 years, managers are going to realize this constant affirmation… causes staff to lose mental tolerance for anything not clappy-happy. Same with schools.
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2. wiseowise ◴[] No.44985141[source]
Already is. Anything that isn’t cheerful, fake salesman is interpreted as hostile.
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3. slipperydippery ◴[] No.44985295[source]
Yeah, the safest professional tone to adopt is now something like what you'd use talking to someone else's very-stupid dog than to a co-worker you respect. It's gross.