Don’t use AI to summarize documents — it’s worse than humans in every way : techtakes

[–] beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Is it only me, or is the linked article not super long on details & is reaching a conclusion from 2 examples? This is important & I need to hear more, & I’m generally biased against AI at this point— but the article isn’t doing enough to convince me

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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.]

[–] 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.

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[+] z00s@lemmy.world -6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (22 children)

The problem is not the LLMs, but what people are trying to do with them.

They are currently spoons, but people are desperately wishing they were katanas.

They work really well for soup, but they can't cut steak. But they're being hyped as super ninja steak knives, and people are getting pissed when they can't cut steak.

If you give them watery, soupy tasks they can do successfully, they can lighten your workload, as long as you're aware of what they are and aren't good at.

What people want LLMs to be able to do, ie. "Steak" tasks:

write complex documents
apply complex knowledge/rules to a situation
Write complex code and create entire programs based on vague description

What LLMs can currently do ie. "Soup" tasks:

check this document and fix all spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors
summarise this paragraph as dot points
write a python program that sorts my photographs into folders based on the year they were taken

Half of Lemmy is hyping katanas, the other half is yelling "Why won't my spoon cut this steak?!! AI is so dumb!!!"

Update: wow, the pure vitriol pouring out of the replies is just stunning. Seems there are a lot of you out there who have, in one way or another, tied your ego very strongly to either the success or failure of AI.

Take a step back, friends, and go outside for a while.

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 7 points 2 months ago

Actually, LLMs are syringes filled with brain-parasite-infested poop

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[+] Eheran@lemmy.world -8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Hahaha what a load of nonsense.

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[+] lightnsfw@reddthat.com -9 points 2 months ago (12 children)

Ok? I don't have another human available to skim a shitload of documents for me to find answers I need and I don't have time to do ot myself. AI is my best option.

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[+] Scary_le_Poo@beehaw.org -16 points 2 months ago

I keep having to remind people. Chatgpt is only as good as the prompt you give it. I am astounded as the amount of garbage that some people get, but I also know that it's generally because their prompts are garbage.

Sometimes it's output sucks, even with good input. But likely, if the output is bad, the input was bad.

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