this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2024
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Except that the ability to communicate is a very real skill that's important for many jobs, and ChatGPT in this case is the equivalent to an advanced version of spelling+grammar check combined with a (sometimes) expert system.
So yeah, if there's somebody who can actually write a good introduction letter and answer questions on an interview, verses somebody who just manages to get ChatGPT to generate a cover and answer questions quickly: which one is more likely going to be able to communicate well:
Don't get me wrong, it can even the field for some people in some positions. I know somebody who uses it to generate templates for various questions/situations and then puts in the appropriate details, resulting in a well-formatted communication. It's quite useful for people who have professional knowledge of a situation but might have lesser writing ability due to being ESL, etc. However, that is always in a situation where there's time to sanitize the inputs and validate the output, often choosing from and reworking the prompt to get the desired result.
In many cases it's not going to be available past the application/overview process due to privacy concerns and it's still a crap-shoot on providing accurate information. We've already seen cases of lawyers and other professionals also relying on it for professional info that turns out to be completely fabricated.
LLMs are distinctly different from expert systems.
Expert systems are designed to be perfectly correct in specific domains, but not to communicate.
LLMs are designed to generate confident statements with no regard for correctness.
alert alert we've got of one of them on the doorstep
I don't understand what part of their statement you read as pro-LLM
arguing-from-existence of expert systems (which were the fantasy in the previous wave)
Expert systems actually worked.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert_system