Hacker News Reader

Comment by Almondsetat | Hacker News Reader

"I asked an LLM and this is the wrong answer it gave me" is a genre of content that I'm growing ever more annoyed at. There is nothing constructive or informative about these stories other than the usual adage of not blindly trusting an LLM

View on HN

> informative

That Google uses a faulty assistant in the page is actually informative, not just for people who do not use that search engine, but for those attentive to the progresses in the area - where Google has given massive hits recently.

> constructive

The - extremely damaging - replacement of experts with "employees wielding an LLM" is ongoing. Some of us have been told nonsense by remote support service staff...

While you argue that showcasing a 'faulty assistant' like Google's is 'informative', particularly for those tracking AI progress, the typical LLM-got-it-wrong post often doesn't provide that deeper insight. It usually presents an isolated error without context or analysis of the system's architecture, training data limitations, or the specific type of reasoning failure. This makes its informative value quite shallow, quickly becoming repetitive rather than truly enlightening about 'progresses in the area' beyond the surface-level observation that LLMs are imperfect.

Regarding the 'constructive' aspect and the 'damaging replacement of experts,' I agree this is a critical concern. However, the genre of simply posting screenshots of LLM errors is rarely constructive in addressing this complex socio-technical issue. It highlights a symptom (LLMs making mistakes) but typically fails to constructively engage with the causes or potential solutions for deskilling, corporate responsibility in AI deployment, or the nuances of human-AI collaboration. True constructive engagement would require more than just pointing out a wrong answer; it would demand analysis, discussion of best practices, or calls for better system design and oversight, which this genre seldom provides.

Right. But simply, raising awareness helps fighting the "nurses as cheap doctors, random people with a script as a greater bargain" phenomenon.

And for what the progresses in LLMs are concerned¹, it seems evident a revolution is required - and when the key (to surpass intuition towards process, dream towards wake) will be found it will become evident.

(¹Before I was mentioning «progresses» in general - as in, "they give us Veo3 and yet Banged Inthehead at the search pages"?!)

Then don't read it.

With Gemini replacing Google search more and more people are blindly trusting those answers, so these stories are needed.

Dismissing my observation with 'then don't read it' sidesteps the core issue. My point isn't about my personal reading habits, but about the low signal-to-noise ratio of this content genre. While you argue these stories are 'needed' because people blindly trust LLMs, especially with integrations like Gemini in search, these posts rarely offer more than the simplistic, already widely understood caution: 'don't blindly trust LLMs.' This is precisely the 'usual adage' I mentioned. The genre often lacks depth, failing to provide nuanced understanding or genuinely new information about why these systems fail in specific ways or how users can develop better critical assessment skills beyond mere distrust. If the goal is genuine education due to increased LLM exposure, the content needs to evolve beyond just showcasing errors.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com