I looked up on google at one point what the minimum required depth for a cable running under a building is by NEC code. It told me it was 0 inches. I laughed and called it stupid, wtf do you mean 0 inches?? Upon further research, 0 inches is the correct answer, I felt real stupid after that -_-

Yeah, LLMs are great if you treat them like a tool to create drafts or give you ideas, rather than like an encyclopedia.

I'll get hate for this but in most tasks people use them for they are pretty dang accurate. I'm talking about frontier models fyi

You can tell it “you made that data up, do not do that”

I wish people would stop treating these tools as intelligent.

That's because ALL generative AI results, even the correct ones, are "made up". They just exist on a spectrum of coincidental correspondence with reality. I'm still surprised that they manage to get as much right as they do.

I have found AI to be a terrible primary source. But something I've found very useful is to ask for a detailed response, structured a certain way. Then tell the AI to grade it as a professor would. It actually does a very good job at acknowledging gaps and giving an honest grade then.

AI shouldn't be a primary source but it's great for starting a topic. Similar to talking to someone that's moderately in the know on something you interested in