In this particular narrow respect, math attracts and rewards people who like doing it without need for motivation. Same like people who like to play sports.
No, its better. The reason is the LLM will say or add things you wouldnt have said or added on your own. Wether right or wrong, what it adds, it adds novel input to your thought stream and helps prevent you getting stuck. Ive found myself surprised from time to time with questions an LLM asked, or the justifications provided when pushing for a different path.
If you've never talked with a highly opinionated LLM, I understand your scepticism, but there is certainly value if you use the right models creatively.
Continually asking the LLM to create exhaustive lists of responses to new ideas (big or small) as they first appear, remaining apropos to the running context, is wonderful.
Only one unexpected connection out of 20 or 50 is fantastic, when you can iterate quickly. Brainstorming is the tradeoff of accepting lots of "failure" ideas, in order to generate more serendipitous and creative ideas.
As I use it, the LLM accelerates, augments, and documents my brainstorming session.
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For some reason, I find it easy to push LLMs to be helpful in ways other people often say "LLMs can't do that".
It is just a matter of setting up the right context, being the right guide, and iterating. They are often faster, aware of more concepts, and more versatile (in terms of fulfilling roles), than any single human.
Their biggest weakness is having a short context. With some work, multiple sessions can mitigate that. Like getting help on a problem from a series of people, where you have to communicate the progression of context to each.
The second weakness is their default to conventional responses. But that is easily overcome by iterative/patient pushing for more creativity responses. Within a session, you can see the model transitioning to more creative as originality goes up, and it gets increasingly "emotionally excited".
They start having "fun", and get more adventurous, as epiphanies emerging from either of you go up. This is not just a funny artifact of how we behave, but also a great barometer for achieving LLM "creative mode".
Aren’t independent LLMs just more data? Some AI researchers are arguing that more data is the primary thing that got us this far, and the primary thing that will improve AI from here. Here’s an example (and a very good talk whether you believe my summary) https://www.youtube.com/live/a13aqr07tJ4?si=FZO5m_XzrfpDhyQP
As a part-time generative artist for several decades, a user of Monte-Carlo methods on a daily basis, and author of some papers on the topic, I personally believe that randomness is not a good answer to anything creative. Randomness is boring, and average. Randomness only helps you when you have a high quality Markov model constraining what your RNG chooses between, and that’s more or less all LLMs actually are. Adding more randomness to creative works in general makes creative works muddy and lowers quality, it needs to be guided. Randomness is a useful tool, but is widely misunderstood IMO and not very effective at brainstorming style exploration; brainstorming is about solving problems in interesting ways, i.e., there is reasoning behind it, not slightly more random word salad.
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