index.md (2782B)
1 --- 2 title: "Weeknote for 2025-W31" 3 description: "A last note (for a while) on LLMs" 4 date: 2025-08-03T11:28:43-07:00 5 draft: false 6 categories: 7 - Weeknotes 8 tags: 9 - LLMs 10 --- 11 12 Most folks who would ever read this weeknote probably already have a good 13 understanding of how LLMs work, but [this blog post from Josh 14 Sharp](https://joshsharp.com.au/blog/how-to-think-about-ai.html) is a great 15 explainer I foresee sharing with others. 16 17 It reminds me of the first half of this presentation that Emily Bender gave 18 almost exactly two years ago, but which I only came across recently: 19 [ChatGP-why: When, if ever, is synthetic text safe, appropriate, and 20 desirable?](https://youtu.be/qpE40jwMilU?si=bsDYAgDLaKP_ELEq&t=2330). Much has 21 changed since this was delivered: the hype around LLMs has gained unprecedented 22 momentum, more people have tried LLM-based chat bots and been exposed to “AI” 23 search results, and the models themselves and the tools built around them can 24 do things today that simply weren’t possible then. Yet in spite of this 25 progress, _none_ of these developments undermine the substance of Prof. 26 Bender’s critique. 27 28 I link to a section toward the end of the presentation (38 minutes and 50 29 seconds into it), where---after explaining how these models work and the 30 fundamental limitations of the technology---she finally outlines some “safe and 31 appropriate” uses of synthetic text[^ethics]. If you don’t have time to sit 32 through the whole presentation, consider watching the five minutes that begin 33 at this point. 34 35 Criticisms of synthetic text echo this 25 year old critique from Edward Tufte 36 on [The Cognitive Style of 37 Powerpoint](https://www.edwardtufte.com/book/the-cognitive-style-of-powerpoint-pitching-out-corrupts-within-ebook/). 38 I suspect that it’s no coincidence that the most enthusiastic adopters of LLMs 39 at most organizations[^management] seem to be managers, the same people who 40 would rather watch a slide deck than read a report. 41 42 I’ve already [written about LLMs]({{< ref "/tags/llms" >}}) as much as I care 43 to, so I promise that this will be my last note on them for a while; unless 44 anything changes that would obviate the above, I don’t see the need to keep 45 hammering these points. I’d much rather write about the new (and new-to-me) 46 things that excite and interest me. 47 48 [^ethics]: Assuming that the ethical considerations about the source of the 49 training material and energy demands of building the model are also 50 addressed; i.e., this talk outlines the appropriate uses of a _speculative_ 51 “ethical model”, but _not_ any of the popular models from (e.g.) OpenAI, 52 Anthropic, Google, or Meta. 53 54 [^management]: This is based on my own experience and conversations with peers; I would love to see data to support or refute this assertion.