Debating the Merits of LLMs
Source: css-irl.info
An article earlier this month by Robin Sloan has prompted a few bloggers to voice their opinions about the merits of LLMs, and the merits of the arguments Robin made in their article too. Michelle makes the point that LLMs have limited utility, mostly for processing texts and do not create new knowledge.
Both of these applications are interesting and potentially useful. But they are not the same. An LLM as described above, while useful, shouldn’t invent new information. It processes the text that already exists, not the science behind it, and if it appears to offer up something new then that should be met with the utmost scrutiny. And it remains to be seen whether they (and others like them) will be worth the extraordinary amount of energy and resources that AI demands.