Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mmooss 6 days ago
Would you give examples of possible negative results, especially those that outweigh the benefits? Do you have ideas on how to do it better?

> like the pop up every time I start my car that reminds me I should not play with the screen while I’m driving.

If something like that is the worst result, there is little downside.

2 comments

The downside is it’s annoying as hell. The upside seems limited to a bureaucratic pat on the back for “doing something good”.
I don't see any basis offered for what you're saying.
The annoyance of every AI announcing is a machine every time it’s invoked is obvious. I don’t see any basis offered for this actually doing anything beneficial.
What does it even mean ”do not mimick humans”? How are the AI supposed to reply if I ask ”do you think this genserver will be a bottleneck in the sync process and how can we fix it?”

The correct answer would sound just like a human unless you either make it do shallow annoying stuff like add redundant ”as an LLM I can’t think or recommend but the answer with the highest probability is …”

More "Star Trek computer" and less C3PO would be a start.

We all know the "voice" of log output of normal, non-LLM computer programs. Usually, the statements are in passive voice and tersely describe what the program is doing or print new kind of data available. An LLM with that style would already sound much more like a computer program than a person.

E.g. an answer to your example prompt could be something like:

   * Locating relevant code for "genserver" and "sync" in the codebase...
   * Reading files...
   * Data collection completed. Analysis results are as follows:
     * Factors that suggest a bottleneck are:
        - ...
     * Factors that speak against a bottleneck are:
        - ...
     * Overall assessment:
        - ...
   * Request complete.
Or something like that.
Sounds just like bad UX and harder to use.
What about it is 'bad UX' or harder? It seems simple, effective, and more efficient to me.
Computers long have always, before LLMs, and most still do do output responses that don't sound like humans. It's hard to understand why you think that's hard.

It is a matter of definition, but a start would be eliminating the social and conversational aspects and attempts at emotional connection.