[exe34]

i agree with this. I keep trying to instill paranoia in the younger people I work with. even if you can see that the code is doing set_x(5), if it's crashing 20 lines down, I want you to either print or breakpoint the code here and really prove to me that x is now 5, before I look any further. sometimes set_x() might not do what you think. other times there might be something stomping on it from here to there, but I want to be absolutely sure, I don't share your faith in the documentation, I don't trust my own eyes to read the code, I just want to be 100% sure.

[throw46365]

Right. So can an LLM convey that paranoia?

The way a formal methods lecturer explained to me his concerns about the Y2K problem by talking about the embedded systems in the automated medication pumps treating his sick partner, and how without an MMU and code that could not be inspected, there was a non-zero chance that rolled-over dates would cause logging data to overwrite configuration data?

Can an LLM convey a bit of anger and fear when talking about Therac-25?

Even though a TA is often at a much lower teaching level than this, every single person who has ever learned anything has done so with the benefit of a teacher who "got through to them" either on a topic or on a principle.

It's bonkers to compare TAs and LLMs simply on their error rate, when the errors TAs make are of a _totally_ different nature to the errors LLMs can make.

[exe34]

oh my point was that somebody has to strike the fear of god in them first before they start trusting the llm blindly. I know the llm can fake this kind of thing, especially if you put a prompt that forces "as an LLM, I'm probably going to shoot you in the foot randomly", but I'm sure they'll get used to ignoring it.

[throw46365]

> oh my point was that somebody has to strike the fear of god in them first before they start trusting the llm blindly.

We agree on that :-)