[rockostrich]

At the moment, I find them to be the perfect tool to get started with learning about something. I don't expect it to tell me everything I need to know or to even be right, but if I ask ChatGPT or another LLM a question about a subject I'm not familiar with then it will at least use a bunch of terminology that I didn't have in my vocabulary before starting.

For example, I just bought a 1990 Miata and I want to install a couple of rocker switches in the dash to individually control the pop-up headlights. I have enough circuits knowledge to safely change outlets and light switches, but I didn't know about relays. I asked ChatGPT how to add these switches and it immediately mentioned buying DPDT switches and tying in the OEM relay into a SPDT relay. It may have gotten the actual circuit diagram completely wrong, but now I know exactly what to read up on.

[kaydub]

Yeah, it's definitely been terrific for figuring out terminology or "the right word" to use for things.

[knownjorbist]

Or to put it another way, it's great at filling in the "don't know what you don't know" gap.

[goalieca]

Now let me ask you the more fundamental question.. did this do you any better than if you had searched a youtube video or some other source? Would this be video from 2016 be relevant? This may not be the right video but my approach for DIY in the last 10-20 years was to hit youtube up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77q9KtjnNTU

I'm trying to gauge whether LLMs are truly expanding our capabilities in a fundamental way or are really just another way to search for answers without going to google or a library.

[rockostrich]

> did this do you any better than if you had searched a youtube video or some other source?

Yes, because when I searched youtube for "miata wink mod" almost all of the results were for kits for microcontrollers which I wanted to avoid because I just want to control the motors with switches. Now I know to include "SPDT" in my search and I can find more targeted videos that add an override using switches.

The video you linked is relevant but doesn't really match what I want to do. The NA Miata has a motor for each pop-up headlight. There's a dedicated button that controls the headlights popping up and down but the light switch on the turn signal overrides this if the lights are on i.e. the relay is DPDT that's an OR of the 2 signals.

I want to add rocker switch for each light where the signal from the rocker switch overrides the behavior from the existing relay. If a given DPDT rocker switch is in neutral then the signal from the relay is used but if the rocker switch is engaged in either direction then the motor moves in that direction. ChatGPT did explain a lot about the default behavior and included a lot of the terminology that helped me confirm that. Of course, if I already knew about relays then I wouldn't have needed any of this, but I didn't.

[tstrimple]

One challenging thing about searching in new domains is you don't necessarily have the vocabulary to adequately ask the right question or use the right terms to unlock the secret knowledge. If I type my dryer symptoms into an LLM and it tells me that the drum rollers are likely bad and need to be replaced, I can take that information to Youtube or Google and get more targeted advice. The LLM can also, and often does ask leading questions to help narrow down the list of possible options.

[oblio]

They're a slightly better search, because web search has degraded. They also provide needed vocabulary almost directly, which accelerates search.

I would say, for big decisions (financial, work projects, health, etc), you really need the sources and you need to double check things, but I would say that maybe 70% of my searches are closer to trivia than to life changing things, so LLMs are obviously very good for that. And frequently the stuff I search is trivially verifiable, so that's also good.

The bigger worry is that the general public doesn't have the mental immune system to actually know what to look for and especially to validate the LLM answers, so we're in for a world of hurt.

We will soon have some extremely brainwashed individuals.

[ordu]

> did this do you any better than if you had searched a youtube video or some other source?

Yes. With LLM it is easy to explore the domain from ground up, and it is interactive. You don't wait for some random guy in a video to come to a point, you are asking questions, consuming the information at your speed.

When I do this, I switch constantly between a search engine and LLM. I copy words of LLM into search box, and asking LLM questions about things I've found. It is the way to explore things. Search engines alone are not. Not anymore. At least you need to ask LLM for some starting points, because when you search google, you get results that are LLM slop. The same thing you can get from LLM, but not interactive, so it can go and go for multiple screens of a wall of a text, while delivering exactly zero useful information.

> I'm trying to gauge whether LLMs are truly expanding our capabilities in a fundamental way or are really just another way to search for answers without going to google or a library.

They just another way to search. And you should strike Google, it doesn't work anymore. 15 years ago google was good enough, but now it is useless.

[marknutter]

For obscure things, it's often very hard to find videos like that, and the videos vary greatly in quality. ChatGPT helped me fix my washing machine and my dryer yesterday with perfect advice, walking me through every step. Those are both projects I would've made a half assed attempt at and then thrown my hands up and called someone to do in the past.

[izzydata]

I wonder if that can be attributed to search engines and search fields on various websites being intentionally worsened in order to push specific content and ads.

Google search and Youtube search used to almost always get you what you were looking for. Now you have to fight with it to maybe get what you are looking for because of all the sponsored ads.

Search used to be a nearly solved problem.

[gessha]

I really dislike YouTube on mobile for tutorials because UI is clunky compared to desktop. The information is locked into video frames and audio that are hard to search through and mobile clients aren’t rich enough to search through transcripts and object search through frames.

I much prefer static web pages and text which is why I reach for the LLM hammer.

The way I see the two is as complements. A YouTube video with someone doing something is rich with information but it’s slow to process. A LLM prompt is fast but unreliable. Sometimes the information that in looking for is not in the Internet and I’m actually looking for a plausible hallucination so I can start from somewhere. Tradeoffs.

[chipsrafferty]

Search hasn't worked for years now.

[brewtide]

Completely not related to any LLM usage, but welcome to the world of NA Miata ownership! I think you'll find that with just general maintenance it'll treat you very well -- My '91 is the most reliable car in the drive, and by far the most whimsical. (I just got back from a Miata errand trip in the pouring rain -- Why did I drive the Miata? Winter is very soon, and it gets put away for ~3 ish months -- so at this time of year, every possible trip is a miata trip!)

[rockostrich]

Thanks! I've been looking for a while but couldn't find one that was in decent shape for less than $10k. Thankfully for some reason people shy away from RHD cars and I snagged a 1990 Eunos Roadster for $7700 on C&B. I'm in NJ and sadly it seems like that week was the last week that would've been a decent week to drive with the top down. I may still try and take it out but I'm definitely going to be bundled up.

[a_t48]

This weekend I stumbled upon a cars and coffee in Fremont. Was expecting a wide variety of cars, and was surprised to see instead all Miatas.