[gylterud]

Juniors learn. Some juniors are potential good seniors. Over time they will internalise good architecture and be able to make good judgments on their own.

Micromanaging LLMs is like having Dory from Finding Nemo as your colleague. You find ways to communicate, but there is no learning going on.

[abustamam]

LLMs can learn, just not the same way that juniors do. When an LLM does something wrong you can always update it's rules or skills to not make that mistake again. Or you can utilize a subagent whose sole purpose is to review code to prevent that mistake. Lots of ways you can improve LLMs over time.

Of course if you don't provide that feedback loop, no learning happens. I guess the same could be said of a junior, though.

[ModernMech]

Building larger systems of accountability isn't usually what people mean by learning. And besides, if telling an LLM not to do something were actually reliable, then LLMs would be a lot more useful than they are. And even if that were reliable, then you're just reinventing expert systems, which didn't work.

[abustamam]

I'm not sure the point of contention is whether or not an arbitrary language model is capable of understanding new concepts and not make the same mistake again, as it is being used.

When people compare LLMs to juniors it's "can I have it do something pretty brain numbing, and when it makes mistakes can I invest time into preventing that from happening again, either systemically or via training?"

IME this is true for LLMs, at least in how my team has been utilizing them. This doesn't make juniors worthless, as they can be useful for things that LLMs aren't good at.

[cevn]

I've seen AI forget or ignore their own rules so not sure that really counts.

[abustamam]

Well sure. But I've also seen juniors and even seniors do the same.

[esafak]

Juniors don't always learn.

[leptons]

No, but you can fire them. Can you fire an AI you're paying for? Yes, but your options are another AI that is just as bad, or worse.

And it's really someone's fault for hiring a bad junior. Someone did interview them, right? Maybe the person that hired them is the problem. And maybe the person that decided to go all-in on AI is also the same problem.

[bigstrat2003]

That's still better than LLMs, which are by their very nature incapable of learning. I'll take "sometimes learns" over "never learns".