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An LLM is a lossy encyclopedia

(simonwillison.net)
509 points tosh | 1 comments | 29 Aug 25 09:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.4s | source

(the referenced HN thread starts at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45060519)
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baq ◴[02 Sep 25 09:43 UTC] No.45100866[source]▶
It's also important to say what it isn't. LLM detractors, for lack of a better word, expect an oracle and then when they find out it's just a lossily compressed blob of human knowledge with natural language as a query interface they say the tool is useless.

I've got my opinion on whether that's useful or not and it's quite a bit more nuanced. You don't zoom-enhance JPEGs for a reason either.

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1. jacquesm ◴[02 Sep 25 11:40 UTC] No.45101734[source]▶
The problem is that figuring out which bits are the wrong ones is as much or more work than reading the relevant documentation. I think the main value is that it has a unified interface rather than 5000 different websites that you need to learn how to navigate.