LLMs vs psychedelics are an interesting comparison: psychedelics lower the threshold for the epiphany sensation, arguably LLMs do the same through agreement (‘sycophancy’).
With psychedelics you see the upsides in engineers who come to work the next day with designs informed by massive insights, and the downsides in people whose ‘massive insights’ result in socially abnormal behaviours.
LLMs seemingly provide validation and support, something very lacking in most lives. The distance between thinking loosely about, say, an app and getting positive feedback and absurd market predictions triggers similar ‘revelations’ in people with no meaningful context, and plays on the hopes of those who do. Much like with psychedelics, though, there is a self-supported self-validated cycle going on, prone to flights of excess.
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LLMs vs psychedelics are an interesting comparison: psychedelics lower the threshold for the epiphany sensation, arguably LLMs do the same through agreement (‘sycophancy’).
With psychedelics you see the upsides in engineers who come to work the next day with designs informed by massive insights, and the downsides in people whose ‘massive insights’ result in socially abnormal behaviours.
LLMs seemingly provide validation and support, something very lacking in most lives. The distance between thinking loosely about, say, an app and getting positive feedback and absurd market predictions triggers similar ‘revelations’ in people with no meaningful context, and plays on the hopes of those who do. Much like with psychedelics, though, there is a self-supported self-validated cycle going on, prone to flights of excess.