TTL 36
Good Morfternight friends!
I just got back from 4 days in Portland, and one of the topics that emerged often from our conversations was how using LLMs makes us realize just how imprecise we often are with our own words.
As a leader I’ve learned that every idea I share has to be crystal clear.
I work on the assumption that things will always be misunderstood, just in case.
This matters even more with feedback. Once emotions get involved, our brain tends to distort both what we say and what we hear.
I found this passage of The Art of Action fascinating: it explained that in the military there is a procedure called “mission analysis.” Subordinates work out the implications of what they’ve been asked to achieve, then go through a process of “backbriefing” their superiors to confirm their understanding before cascading it down to their own teams.
That’s why I suggest that whenever someone receives feedback, they should repeat it back. It’s the only way to be sure that what needed to pass through actually has.
LLMs seem to have industrialized this technique. They restate what you’ve asked them to do before they do it. And they’re PRECISE about it.
A quick example from a dialogue between a colleague of mine and an LLM:
“Can you read web links?”
“Yes, I can.”
“What are the most interesting news from https://techmeme.com?”
“I’m unable to access external websites and therefore cannot provide you with a list of the most interesting news headlines from the provided link.”
We laughed at it for a while. Then, we realized it was technically right.
He asked if it could read web links—which it can—but he didn’t ask if it could follow them and read the content behind them.
That’s why I smile when people say LLMs are stupid.
They’re not. They’re just incredibly literal.
If anything, LLMs are teaching me to pick my words with more precision, not because they are worse than humans at understanding, but because they make the fact that they don’t understand much more apparent.
That’s it for today, see you next week.
If someone forwarded this to you, you can subscribe.
I also publish on paolo.blog and monochrome.blog.
Leave a Reply