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by bob1029 123 days ago
I think user interface design is a very cursed task for an LLM. They are skilled at giving you high quality CSS and design patterns, but they're horrible at actual layout and composition.

I can say "add a status strip to the form with blah blah" and it will work perfectly. However if I ask for something like "a modern UI for gathering customer details" I'm guaranteed to get a pile of shit.

2 comments

You’re just describing LLM development in general.

If you want good results with a specific output, the operator needs to be giving specific instructions. Asking for vague results will only give you something that vaguely resembles the thing you wanted, but it’s not going to produce perfect results the first time.

Same thing would happen if you had asked a human intern.
This is almost a meme reply on HN: absolving the LLM by comparing it to an inexperienced human.
I think the meme is trying to discredit LLMs by saying they don’t read your mind and produce exactly what you wanted from vague prompts.

Everyone who uses LLMs knows that it’s an iterative process where you need to provide specific instructions. It’s only the LLM naysayers who think that pointing out that “Generate a modern UI for me” doesn’t create perfect results on the first pass is an indictment of LLMs.

No? yesitcan is correct, and you're not. His phrase is a meme phrase and yours is not. Why do the whole "NO YOU" thing?
To me it seems less about absolving the LLM and more saying that "a modern UI for gathering customer details" is wildly underspecified. You're asking the LLM to generate something tasteful for a very vague use case; there's just not that much to go on.