LLMs are great at summarization, but summaries are not great for learning ⚡ Many engineers, across all levels, have started relying solely on summaries generated by LLMs to understand any concept. But it does more harm than good. Learning from summaries is quick and easy. It makes you think that you understood the concept, but one probing question and you will realize how surface-level your understanding was. Summaries are lossy, which means there is a loss of information (crucial details) when your favorite LLM is summarizing stuff for you. Uncovering that information requires you to ask deep questions to yourself and subsequently to LLMs. Asking tough questions is tougher, and it requires you to have a deeper understanding of the subject. Deep understanding cannot be built just by reading summaries, which is the new habit in town. Do you see the cyclic dependency here? Don't get me wrong, summaries are important as they act as a great starting point, but solely on them is catastrophic. So, whenever you find time, grind it out - read books, blogs, papers, docs, and good codebases. Once in a while build projects and prototype the concept. The depth of understanding separates the best from the better, the better from the good, and the good from the average. ⚡ I keep writing and sharing my practical experience and learnings every day, so if you resonate then follow along. I keep it no fluff. youtube.com/c/ArpitBhayani #AsliEngineering #CareerGrowth
Completely agree and honestly speaking I have been previously quite pessimistic about LLMs but currently can't imagine how my workflow would be without it. Currently my first go to is Chatgpt and the mobile version is super cool. Don't need to type too much there, just use voice and when it starts giving less useful answers is when I start searching answers by going through blogs, codebases, etc. Have built a couple of projects by going along with this approach at the start of each of them. To name a few👇 https://www.jsonlens.com/ https://wordcloudgenerator.vercel.app/
An emerging skill with using LLMs is the ability to distinguish gaps and take the initiative to research and fill those gaps. There's a functional purpose with summaries to get you through the door, and there's a functional purpose to use summaries to spring-board you into the research that will ultimately help you deliver tasks
Yay! You've hit the nail on the head. Summaries may be quick fixes, but they're no substitute for deep understanding. The depth of knowledge truly separates the best from the rest. Keep enlightening us! Arpit Bhayani
You're right Arpit Bhayani! LLMs definitely lack depth when it comes to learning hard technical theory or skills. I find books, blogs or detailed online courses much better for this purpose. Also, I am very skeptical about the accuracy of information generated by LLMs especially when it's related to a topic that I am not well versed in. I find books, published papers, technical blogs and online courses to be more reliable in this regard. But I do see some companies offering a research mode (the information is more accurate and it also provides citations) while using LLMs, so I suppose there is some hope that things will get better!
Generally people does not always have the time to learn everything in deep There are instances when we need to understand a concept quickly and apply it. In such scenarios these summaries are always helpful, but not denying the fact that to gain proficiency one needs to understand the full concept in detail
The best idea is to roll up your sleeves and try to implement a concept after getting an idea, there is no short cut but getting deep into it. Otherwise, there is a good chance when a problem arises one won't be able to solve it !
Truly said, to becomes proficient you should deep dive into topics instead of rely on summary
If you’re more reliant on Chat gpt and other AI tools for Coding as a beginner then you will struggle to learn real programming
Couldn't agree more! It's like thinking you're a chef because you can microwave dinner. Real skills come from getting your hands dirty in the details.
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