Ask HN: Are people generally interested using LLMs for learning purposes? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are people generally interested using LLMs for learning purposes?

7 pointsiknownthing11 comments

When LLMs first hit the scene I had assumed one of the big use cases would be to use the LLM's vast knowledge to teach people about subjects they are interested in. I thought there would be some hot app that let you suggest a subject (e.g. CUDA programming) and the app would interactively teach you and test your knowledge along the way. How come this use case never took off?

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I just ask LLMs questions about things I'm curious about. I don't really want to follow someone else's predefined curriculum. A curriculum is necessary when the information has to be delivered in a lecture, but not in a 1-1 interactive setting.

If you type "I want to learn CUDA programming. Where should I start?" into Claude, it gives a pretty plausible outline. It's not clear what an app could add to it.

Same. The ability to investigate a topic from almost any angle or starting point has been really fun and helpful.

Why do you need an app? I learn using AI, I don't see what needs to be improved (Aside from making it smarter etc. which an app can't do)

I've found this skill to work well: https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/produc...

I've used it to teach myself system design in a way that works for me, enabled me to land a new job.

Use case doesn't take off because you need to critically assess what it's telling you and push back if it doesn't make sense.

I use LLMs for structured learning of old economics and philosophy books out of copyright. Is quite useful for me, given that I have no background in either of these areas.

The most vocal crowd that I've heard from so far aren't interested in learning with AI, because it has to do everything and why its so slow GENERATE EVERYTHING.

Because you don’t need a separate app for that

You can just do it in the chat interface

People do that all the time now

I honestly just find topics I'm intrested in and ask the LLM. I have multiple long chats running and whenever I have a question about that topic, I continue it. This has honestly given me so much general knowledge, even for the very niche things like subway train software or very useful stuff like giving me tailored advice to improve my sleep.

For more complex stuff, like setting up AWS object storage, it can honestly teach you step by step, that is if you're willing to actually absorb the information.

You don’t learn anything from LLMs. They are good as a reference, not teaching.

They are likely actually worse than other electronic learning (which is already bad) because of how human preference optimized they are, same as eating ultra processed food is easy but not very good for you.

You got some really weird cultural issues going on, man. I had a conversation with an LLM last night and learned the difference between semantic and episodic memory because I was interested in learning how humans form memories. Crap! Now I only know that semantic and episodic memory are what they are, in the same way a Hot Pocket fills me up. What's the brain version of having high cholesterol? Alzheimer's?

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