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0 pointsbastawhiz2y ago0 comments

Not that I'm trying to change your mind, but some specific things that LLMs do for me:

- Helping to refactor SQL

- writing jq commands (I simply cannot)

- writing shell code (it happens just infrequently enough that I can't justify spending the time to get good)

- brainstorming names or puns. Word association is easier with a second person (or an LLM)

- figuring out why my AWS CLI commands aren't doing what I'm expecting them to be doing

- asking for reasons why a piece of code wouldn't work

I can competently do all of these things on my own if I havw to, but now I don't have to do them on my own so my life is easier.

0 comments

badpun2y ago

This is just helping out with trivial tasks, which sounds very much in scope of LLMs. The OP was talking about replacing "world class consultants", which I'm very sceptical of.

bastawhizOP2y ago

How many people actually hire consultants, let alone "world class" consultants? Especially on a regular basis. The value delivered by solving problems you encounter daily (hourly?) will outstrip the value you get from problems you need to solve every year or two (or more).

I get a half decent expert to solve problems I don't have the patience or experience to solve myself. That's literally the definition of what a consultant does. What you call "trivial" is what lots of other people describe what consultants largely do.

rmilejczz2y ago

I use it almost exclusively to help me approach novel problems, or at least problem spaces that I am severely lacking expertise in. It’s pretty incredible for helping me leverage my extant programming knowledge to accomplish things that I couldn’t before due to being blocked by research.

I’ve also used it quite a lot for advice as I was learning project management and moving away from individual contributions.

So I think as a consultant it has value, though I think “world class” might be a bit hyperbolic, since I still need to validate its output.

bmitc2y ago

> I use it almost exclusively to help me approach novel problems, or at least problem spaces that I am severely lacking expertise in. It’s pretty incredible for helping me leverage my extant programming knowledge to accomplish things that I couldn’t before due to being blocked by research.

Can you expand on this? This is what I'd like to use it for, but I don't ever have any experience remotely close to helpful. The typical response is just something like "that's complicated but here's some gibberish that tries to show a simple example but is still wrong in ways it's not useful at all".

Do you have a specific example?

avion232y ago

I've had it craft legal letters in German. Very good content

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