Hacker News Reader

Comment by phendrenad2 | Hacker News Reader

I don't like hammers, either. But I wouldn't try to build a house without one, now that they've been invented.

Do you really not like hammers? They seem quite nice. Hefty, tactile, purposeful.

No, I think hammers are fine. I think I could find a lot wrong with them if I tried, though. I could miss the nail and mash my fingers. I could misplace them and not have one ready when I need to build something. The hammer might be too heavy and might bend a small nail, or might be too light and not be able to bang in a large nail. I was making a point that AI agents are just a tool, and "liking" them is kind of irrelevant. I'll take my downvotes like a trooper, go ahead.

Analogies are usually weak. They are rhetorical candy. Just defend LLMs on their own merits - don't bother simply stating that they are like a hammer, or a car, or a compiler.

And try to resist the urge to predict your own downvotes. You are not a brave, pitiable underdog. You're just a person with an opinion, like all of us.

I wish to defend the hammers analogy. I don't know, our whole world is analogies, isn't it? Plus it's funny, that's worth something right?

True, analogies are great fun, and useful for teaching. They're just rarely useful for convincing. It's hard to make a meaningful attack or defense of something, A, by pointing to a different thing, B, without some serious case-building.

I'd like to gear more about this theory that analogies are unconvincing. First time I'm hearing something like this.

It's not a theory, it's just an observation that seems obvious, to be a little blunt. Why would saying "X is like Y" mean anything on its own? Analogies in the service of rhetoric are unconvincing by default. You have to establish why X and Y are equivalent, not just say that it's true. Without that, it's basically just designed to make people who already agree with you nod their heads, and people who don't agree with you shake their heads. There's nothing there.

Yeah, LLMs are "just a tool", like a hammer. Like a nuclear bomb. Like a dictionary. Like government. Like a can opener.

It doesn't mean anything.

The reason we reach for analogies is because they are easy and satisfying, not because they are effective. Once we make an analogy, the conversation essentially just becomes about litigating all the differences between X and Y, rather than actually talking about the original topic.

I think that with the right shared context, analogies work quite well. I think in general, people will know what I meant with the one I used here.

What is it about a hammer that you find distasteful

I'm not GP, but hammers do kill hundreds of people every year.

Well at least you own the hammer that you paid for, but do you own the LLM?

Hammers are very efficient at dealing with the load-bearing seams.

How do you feel about MC Hammer?

You don't like hammers...?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com