LLMs like ChatGPT have actually done the thing people claimed Google or Wikipedia would do, in that LLMs have stopped people being curious and actually learning how stuff works, or how one gets the answer to a question. Superficial intelligence for the superficially intelligent
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There have always been nerds who are curious and interested in the details/functions of things and the normies who largely just want their baconators and stories from them.
https://flaminghydra.com/superficial-intelligence/
The future is here... hooray...
(At least, deeper than superficially.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_article_cleanup
LLMs are good at telling you what they believe you expect them to tell you. That can be useful (like for creative inspiration) but way more limited than advertised.
That’s the difference between LLM and Google/Wikipedia. LLM’s provides an answer whereas the others provide results.
A lot of people tell on themselves with that one.
Just … what is happening
And just like with people, one needs to be prepared for misinformation.
They are a low-effort first step, after which usually more steps need to be taken elsewhere.
I was in high school when Wikipedia became a thing and every teacher either knew it was unreliable or had to be told. We knew it was BS tho
So in that way it has made me even more curious.