Hi, and welcome! These sorts of spaces - rationalist, or rationalist-adjacent, can be a breath of fresh air for discourse, I totally agree!
Re: using LLMs for knowledge generation, I would caution that it’s quite possible to become disconnected from reality, like mentioned here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rarcxjGp47dcHftCP/your-llm-assisted-scientific-breakthrough-probably-isn-t
The AIs have their own biases and shortcomings, and it can be very hard to correct for them. It can feel very good to feel like you can understand lots of things with them, but please be cautious! Perhaps take the time to test a fanciful/cranky belief you have, but one you know to be false, and try to get the LLM to convince you of it, as suggested here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iuMpzeLfRhsH6ntRf/kbear-s-shortform?commentId=wrWAipieJSSr23aMT It may give you some evidence about how much you should change your beliefs about other things the AI tells you.
Hi, everyone. My name is Bo Jun Han(hbj), and I am from Taiwan. This post is the actual first one that I wrote down and published on LessWrong. Since my native language is not English and my English is not very good, I have to use Grammarly to correct my words and grammar. I know the rule here is that people are forbidden to use LLMs to help improve writing and creating, so I try to drop down by myself, word by word. If it makes you feel like junior high school homework, please forgive me.
Interestingly, the one "which" most strongly recommends me to find and join here is the LLM that was published by Google, named "GEMINI". I am so lonely and feel hopeless about finding a mentor for a Ph.D for nearly four months. Due to my past major (M.A. in International Relations), there is definitely no response from sending hundreds of cold emails. Even still, keep working hard on my research works and publishing preprint reports on Zenodo and ResearchGate, the whole scholarly world seems to stay quiet and silent spontaneously.
I hate Meta's ecosystem, Reddit (for their unbelievable shadowbans machinism), and feel disappointed in other normal or daily social platforms. It is no one could real respectedly and seriously talk with the opinions or thoughts at there. However, few people would group and debate moderately on the internet, even though forums are rarely seen. Most passionate Taiwanese are pouring their energy into the clamor and mudslinging of political conflict. Although my department in the University was "Political" Science, I love to talk about the situation associated with human beings more than whether to unify with the People's Republic of China into a single nation.
The way I create my articles is: I "say" the context to the computer to transfer into digital form, and I ask LLMs for more details, background, and base knowledge. After all, I would use "cut" and "paste" functions to arrange the bonds of a writing, then use the LLMs to audit, revise the words using and polish sentences. What I have to clarify before any banning or hating happens, the thoughts and insights are no doubt from myself, a human being. There is no possibility for an LLM to connect the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Cryptography to establish a mathematical conjecture. The one do that is me. Always me. A "human brain" or so-called "self-awareness" is the object of human society.
I list the big questions and split them into small ones, and ask LLMs, "What is the most difficult barrier in front of us?" They answered, then I asked more deeply, time and time again. What I’m most proud of is my extensive knowledge across a wide range of fields, though I must admit I’m not an expert in every single one. Therefore, I often can cross the disciplines to connect very different points to gain a critical insight. The rules mention that we have to quote all the parts of creating by LLMs, but how can I separate the insights that emerge when I combine my own inspiration with the answers generated by LLMs, presented as a cohesive whole?
I had written some articles about the bias to belittle the process and outcomes of humans and machines collaborating to create new knowledge. It must be the and have to be the key argument in the next decades. If you don't mind, you can visit my LinkedIn profile to read the articles in Traditional Chinese with translation software to obtain my points of view about that.
Besides, I will write a bilingual article in the future since there is no rule forbidding people from using their mother language.
Thank you for your patience.
Here are my works and my profile:
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bo-Jun-Han
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/hbjun