[rsynnott]

On that basis you'll also be adopting TCM, and homeopathy, and dowsing, and all major religions simultaneously, and all major fad diets simultaneously? Like, "lots of people like this thing and think it is helping them" is not terribly strong evidence that it is actually helping them. It's not a good argument.

[simonw]

How about "lots of people like this thing" where many of those people are credible professionals who I have respected from LONG before they started using LLMs?

[rsynnott]

Again, it's not _hugely_ strong evidence. Linus Pauling won _two_ Nobel prizes, was unquestionably brilliant... but that doesn't mean I'm going to start megadosing vitamin C anytime soon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling#Medical_research...).

(See also Newton and alchemy, and the list goes on.)

[simonw]

The experts I respect on this are people who's expertise is in software development, so when they say "this stuff helps me do what I do better and faster" I trust them more than if they said "I've started megadosing vitamin C and it's amazing".

It helps that what they're discovering matches my own personal experience as well.

[kiitos]

there are just as many equally-qualified experts who have been consistently giving exactly the opposite feedback/signal, which you never seem to acknowledge or incorporate into your comments