[Willingham]

I’ve thought of LLM’s as google 2.0 for some time now. Truly a world changing technology similar to how google changed the world, likely to have an even larger impact than google had as we create highly specialized Implementations of the technology in the coming decade…but it’s not energy positive nuclear fusion, or a polynomial time NP solver, it’s just google 2.0

[dingnuts]

Google 2.0 where you have to check every answer it gives you because it's authoritative about nothing.

Works great when the output is small enough to unit test or immediately try in situations with no possible negative outcomes.

Anything larger? Skip the LLM slop and go to the source. You have to go to the source, anyway.

[Chilko]

All while using far more energy than a normal google search

[glenneroo]

I keep wondering what the long-game (if any) of LLMs is... to make the world dependent on various models then jack the rates up to cover the costs? The gravy-train of SV funding has to end eventually... right?

[TZubiri]

Tale as old as time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)

[CamperBob2]

You have to go to the source, anyway.

Yeah, and then check that. I don't get this argument at all.

People who uncritically swallow the first answer or two they get from Google have a name... but that would just derail the thread into politics.

[sillyfluke]

There is a truth in the grandparent's comment that doesn't necessarily conflict with this view. The Google 2.0 effect is not necessarily that it gives you a better correct answer faster than google. I think it never dawned on people how bad they were at searching about topics they didn't know much about or how bad google was at pointing them in the right direction prior to chatgpt. Or putting it another way, they never realized how much utility they would get out of something that pointed them in the correct direction even though they couldn't trust the details.

It turns out that going from not knowing what you don't know to knowing what you don't know adds an order of magnitude improvement to people's experience.

[TZubiri]

And the llm by design does not save or provide source. Unlike google or wikipedia which are transparent about sources.

[CamperBob2]

It most certainly does, if you are using the latest models, which people making comments like this never are as a rule.

[TZubiri]

I'm not sure what you mean. I'm using 4o.

Are you referring to the search tool? Like when you ask the LLM something beyond its cutoff date it searches and gives you what it searched?

While it's cool that that feature shows the sources, the core of the LLM still does not provide sources, again by design it forgets what the sources are, it cannot link to the common crawl datapoints.

[CamperBob2]

When I explicitly ask o1-pro for a long-form report, it provides tons of citations to both academic and commercial sources. Yes, those are (presumably) the result of searches but meh, whatever, it works. Even if they could associate results with original sources like CC they probably wouldn't dare expose that capability, given how many copyright suits they're already dealing with.

4o can link to sources to some extent, but it sounds like it doesn't do "research-y" things at all unless you have a paid account. It works for me -- note how it cites the manufacturer's literature here: https://i.imgur.com/lRkH948.png -- but when I ask it the same thing in a private window it doesn't cite any sources: https://i.imgur.com/Kc6Y0IR.png .

So that does seem kind of lame. They will offer source citations in the free model the minute they realize they can deliver ads that way, I'm sure...

[slickQ]

Perplexity AI does this as well and for free. And so do the latest Gemini models.

[LPisGood]

There is something to be said for trusting people’s (or systems of people’s) authority.

For example, have you ever personally verified that humans went to the moon? Have you ever done the experiments to prove the Earth is round?

[rwiggins]

> Have you ever done the experiments to prove the Earth is round?

I have, actually! Thanks, astronomy class!

I've even estimated the earth's diameter, and I was only like 30% off (iirc). Pretty good for the simplistic method and rough measurements we used.

Sometimes authorities are actually authoritative, though, particularly for technical, factual material. If I'm reading a published release date for a video game, directly from the publisher -- what is there to contest? Meanwhile, ask an LLM and you may have... mixed results, even if the date is within its knowledge cutoff.

[TZubiri]

That's badass.

Was it the stick on the earth and measuring the right triangle casted by the shadow?

IIRC you also had to do the same thing on another spot far apart and measure the difference between both triangles. At the same time.

[rwiggins]

It's been so long that I barely remember the details, but yes, we used a gnomon to calculate several things... the earth's circumference, our local solar noon, latitude and longitude, etc.

I specifically remember that we measured how far the shadow moved over time using chalk. I think this was in lieu of having a second triangle somewhere else, although, for all I know we might have used a second reference distance.

Our campus had this elaborate outdoor "observatory" that had all sorts of interesting features. The gnomon was one of them, but there were other cool things, like IIRC there was a metal sculpture where Polaris would be seen through a central hole (and a guide inscribed in the concrete to figure out where to stand for that to happen -- I think it was based on viewing height).

[sillyfluke]

This is not a helpful phrasing I think. Sources allow the reader to go as far down the rabbit hole as they are willing to or knowledgable enough to go.

For example, if I'm looking for some medical finding and I get to a source that's a clinical study from a reputable publication, I may be satisfied and stop there since this is not my area of expertise. However, a person with knowledge of the field may be able to parse the study and pick it apart better than I could. Hence, their search would not end there since they would be unsatisfied with just the source I was satisfied with.

On the other hand, having no verifiable sources should leave everyone unsatisfied.

[LPisGood]

Of course, that verifiability is a big part of that trust. I’m not sure why you think my phrasing is not helpful; we seem to agree.

[Spooky23]

Have you provided documentation that you are human? Perhaps you are a lizard person sowing misinformation to firm up dominance of humankind.