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dgerard@awful.systems

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Don’t use AI to summarize documents — it’s worse than humans in every way (pivot-to-ai.com)

submitted 2 months ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

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[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz -3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

You could use them to know what the text is about, and if it's worth your reading time. In this situation, it's fine if the AI makes shit up, as you aren't reading its output for the information itself anyway; and the distinction between summary and shortened version becomes moot.

However, here's the catch. If the text is long enough to warrant the question "should I spend my time reading this?", it should contain an introduction for that very purpose. In other words if the text is well-written you don't need this sort of "Gemini/ChatGPT, tell me what this text is about" on first place.

EDIT: I'm not addressing documents in this. My bad, I know. [In my defence I'm reading shit in a screen the size of an ant.]

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 20 points 2 months ago

Both the use cases here are goverment documents. I'm baffled at the idea of it being "fine if the AI makes shit up".

[–] V0ldek@awful.systems 6 points 2 months ago

if the text is well-written you don’t need this sort of “Gemini/ChatGPT, tell me what this text is about” on first place.

And if it's badly written then the LLM will shit itself.

Now let's ask ourselves how much of the text in the world is "well-written"?

Or even better, you could apply this to Copilot. How much code in the world is good code? The answer is fucking none, mate.

[–] pikesley@mastodon.me.uk 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

@lvxferre @dgerard have you bumped your head?

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No, it's just rambling. My bad.

I focused too much on using AI to summarise and ended not talking about it summarising documents, even if the text is about the later.

And... well, the later is such a dumb idea that I don't feel like telling people "the text is right, don't do that", it's obvious.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 9 points 2 months ago

You'd think so, but guess what precise use case LLMs are being pushed hard for.