537

LESSWRONG
LW

536
Language Models (LLMs)PracticalAI
Frontpage

81

How people use LLMs

by Elizabeth
27th Apr 2025
1 min read
6

81

This is a linkpost for https://www.gleech.org/llms#see-also

81

How people use LLMs
9Rasool
3Kaj_Sotala
2Elizabeth
2Kaj_Sotala
3Neil
1Vale
2[comment deleted]
New Comment
6 comments, sorted by
top scoring
Click to highlight new comments since: Today at 10:27 PM
[-]Rasool5mo90

@Alex Lawsen  has written about this too:

https://lawsen.substack.com/p/another-conversation-about-other

https://lawsen.substack.com/p/notebooklm-podcasts-but-good

https://lawsen.substack.com/p/getting-the-most-from-deep-research

https://lawsen.substack.com/p/my-current-writing-workflow

https://lawsen.substack.com/p/my-current-claude-projects

Reply
[-]Kaj_Sotala5mo30

Note that Auren has some definite whispering earring vibes

Interested what makes you say that, since I've been trying it out for about a week and haven't gotten that vibe. I've found it useful for getting more awareness into my patterns, but the way I interact with it feels very me-driven. I choose what topics to bring up with it, when to continue or drop a conversation, etc. So far at least it hasn't felt like it would have made any decisions for me, though conversations with it have shaped some small decisions (e.g. after I have a conversation with it about how doing X makes me feel worse, I had a slightly easier time remembering not to do X later).

Reply
[-]Elizabeth5mo20

I was pointing at the capacity to form a dependence on it, especially without realizing the extent, rather than decision making per-se. 

Reply
[-]Kaj_Sotala5mo20

Got it. The term implies something much more specific to me.

Reply
[-]Neil5mo30

See also: 

https://borretti.me/article/how-i-use-claude

I was planning on putting a whole list here but alas I am drawing a blank. 

There's a lot of dispersed wisdom in @Zvi's stack too but I can't remember any sufficiently discriminatory key words to find them.

Reply
[-]Vale5mo10

A great collection of posts there. Plenty of useful stuff.

This prompted me to write down and keep track of my own usage:
https://vale.rocks/posts/ai-usage

Reply
[+][comment deleted]5mo20
Moderation Log
More from Elizabeth
View more
Curated and popular this week
6Comments
Language Models (LLMs)PracticalAI
Frontpage
Deleted by cousin_it, 04/28/2025
Reason: Comment deleted by its author.

I've gotten a lot of value out of the details of how other people use LLMs, so I'm delighted that Gavin Leech created a collection of exactly such posts (link should go to the right section of the page but if you don't see it, scroll down). 

  • https://kajsotala.fi/2025/01/things-i-have-been-using-llms-for/
  • https://nicholas.carlini.com/writing/2024/how-i-use-ai.html
  • https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CYYBW8QCMK722GDpz/how-much-i-m-paying-for-ai-productivity-software-and-the
  • https://www.avitalbalwit.com/post/how-i-use-claude
  • https://andymasley.substack.com/p/how-i-use-ai
  • https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2025/02/02/How-I-Use-AI-Early-2025/
  • https://www.jefftk.com/p/examples-of-how-i-use-llms
  • https://simonwillison.net/series/using-llms/
  • https://signull.substack.com/p/how-to-think-with-ai
  • https://alicemaz.substack.com/p/how-i-use-chatgpt
  • https://fredkozlowski.com/2024/08/29/youre-using-chatgpt-wrong/
  • https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WNd3Lima4qrQ3fJEN/how-i-force-llms-to-generate-correct-code
  • https://www.tumblr.com/nostalgebraist/772798409412427776/even-setting-aside-the-need-to-do
  • https://www.jointakeoff.com/
  • This is more of a howto than a whatto. I wouldn’t use it for stats or pharma decisions as he does.
  • https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4mvphwx5pdsZLMmpY/recent-ai-model-progress-feels-mostly-like-bullshit

 

Some additions from me:

  • I use NaturalReaders to read my own writing back to me, and create new audiobooks for walks or falling asleep (including from textbooks).
  • Perplexity is good enough as a research assistant I'm more open to taking on medical lit reviews than I used to be.
  • I used Auren, which is advertised as a thinking assistant and coach, to solve a musculoskeletal issue my physical therapist had whiffed on for weeks (referral code with free tokens, but only after your first payment).  
    • Note that Auren has some definite whispering earring vibes, and the privacy protections don't seem particularly strong, so think through your usage.

  • I used Claude to design backstories for characters in a TTRPG/