[oerdier]

A critical difference between a calculator and an LLM is that a calculator doesn't make decisions. A calculator performs the operations you type in, nothing more. An LLM does make decisions. The human operator of the LLM needs to be able to evaluate the decisions made by the LLM. That requires education and experience beforehand.

An LLM is a force multiplier only, not a replacement. It's a personal assistant to an expert. To use an LLM in a acceptable way, you still first have to learn how to do what it does yourself. I think your suggestion for people to be taught how to use LLMs is justified, but they should do so only after first being taught a no-LLM curriculum. I think this should be entirely after what the notion of an education was in pre-LLM times. Don't incorporate LLMs into our current education, instead teach use of LLMs after our current education.

[vincnetas]

continuing on personal asistant analogy, i bet even now we have ultra rich people who are not smart enough to do things themselves but are smart enough to buy (hire) smart people to work for them. And even allow them to make decisions without understanding them. But with only a guard rails : does this produce wealth for me. If yes, do what you need, i don't care :)

So this i think is applicable to AI also, pay for smarter than you AI's pit them against each other, let them supervise each other and measure the outcomes you need. Who cares how they achieve that (sound clinical and scary)

[oerdier]

It has gone well enough for these rich people because their hired assistants were human. With humans there is some degree of responsibility, liability and a slow tempo (= time to correct) involved. LLMs are a significantly different beast.

[prox]

The post yesterday about the teacher who gave students an Apple II and taught assembly was very enlightening and example of how to go forward.