Its been a while, but i think I need to start collecting my thoughts again.

I am a Public Servant for the Canadian Federal Government, I have taken an oath that I must uphold. As always my views, thoughts and opinions are my own.

LLM’s are obscuring the paths

Recently I posted about a worrying interaction I had with a LLM, Frustrating Safe.

When I reflect on that story I worry for those people who are quick to stop and second guess themselves.

My fear is that an LLM will inadvertently encourage them to stop experimenting, to stop pushing… to stop trying because of an overabundance of caution. There are groups of people in society who dont have the social networks to encourage and drive them forward and they will look to the LLM as their single source of guidance.

For those of us who want to lead others, encourage your folks to dig deeper, don’t take the LLM as the final word.
Frustrating Safe

I was chatting with a colleague recently about how they had been using an LLM to work on a project, and the LLM had told the colleague they had made a great strides in exploring the problem but at some point its time to admit defeat – that solving for X wasn’t possible.

This reminded me of my own back-and-forth I had recently with GPT. I was using GPT to internet research possible solution on how to fill a gap between a bearing surface and a metal lip.

I needed to make a 2mm tall spacer to lift this bearing surface higher(see photo), which I informed the LLM I was going to do.

A 3D Printer with the right print orientation and material is a great ways too solve this problem, but at some point in the conversation with GPT, the LLM turned on me and started giving me advice to not make my own part.

In its professional opinion I was to seek, “professional advice”.

This kind of inadvertent response is something I’ve noticed popping up more in my use of LLM’s for prototyping. Its all very frustrating. I have my own professional and lived experiences, and those real experiences have taught what acceptable limits of the material I am working with.

This LLM has none of that, it only has a matrix of training data and weights. Those weights are overvaluing assurance and impractical levels safety.

Can’t Stop, Wont Stop.
Green Shoots

A colleague of mine has put out a new post about the inception of DTC. I would highly recommend folks give it a read.

“I hoped the system would have had more capacity for institutional reform than it has.”

I’m trying to think of something to write, to say the least some of my muscles have atrophied. What has usually worked in the past is I just need to get the fingers to start moving again. My brain will start to think in either sentences eventually or if nothing else some sort of conscious thought . We’ll get there …

So really what am I feeling about sboots post, I feel …..sigh. I am tired of this style of writing. Its not that I dont find it useful, its that its not useful for me(selfish I know !). I’m just kind of tired of the retrospectives.

Again, go read the blog post!

For me, I’ve been in the public service long enough to have seen multiple iterations of renewal, each with their own set of aspirations. I have been in the work-groups, the side chats, the conversation threads and now finally the teams channels talking about these things.

I would argue that although what has been tried in the past has come to some level of closure, that the work continues on in other groups(big and small).

I am going to try and write about where I can see the green shoots growing.