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Comment by __loam | Hacker News Reader

I'm very skeptical about the possibility of building an application using LLMs that meaningfully adds to the utility of the base model and isn't piss easy to copy. If your product is just a system prompt you are adding very little value.

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Sure, a system prompt alone isn't much of a product and is only the barest of what you can do with LLMs. But there's _so_ much more you can do with an LLM. Developing something more complex is what the position should be about. Integrating it into workflows is the most obvious example, and the only way to do that is just a bunch of integration work, like software engineers do.

I'd be pretty concerned about integrating a tool like LLMs that are known to be flakey into a more complex product. Seems like we're asking for trouble there.

People make mistakes and "workflows" typically involve people, so both the LLM and human output often needs review. Which is complicated and involves a lot of UI. More engineering work!

i see many startups deeply understanding end-customer-workflows and usecases, and then experimenting with how LLM may improve that.

customer-service, code-assist, call-center are a few areas which show early promise wherein customers are willing to pay for the added value. outside of these areas, i am yet to see breakthrough applications for which people are willing to pay. let me know if this is mistaken.

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