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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   3247 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 10, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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It’s more akin to web surfing or browsing Wikipedia than chatting on a forum or whatever. I will use it as an open format encyclopedia and explicitly not as a conversationalist sounding board.

OK, this has mystified me for a long time. I use LLMs for various editing, writing, coding tasks, occasionally to kludge a moderator for party games, to simulate human feedback on human-oriented questions, and once in a long while to suggest a starting point for a lit review or to locate a half-remembered link. But can you help me understand the "encyclopedia" and "web surfing replacement" use-cases, when we have actual encyclopedias and a web to surf?

When I see a granny or a teen just asking ChatGPT, I assume it's because they can't internet, can't read, or don't give a shit about the quality and provenance of their information, but for a super-online, epistemically hyper-aware Mottizen to do this feels like hearing someone say they hire a guy to order all their food, chew it and spit it in their mouth.

But can you help me understand the "encyclopedia" and "web surfing replacement" use-cases, when we have actual encyclopedias and a web to surf?

When looking for answers to programming questions, lots punctuation gets stripped out of search queries, and many language keywords are stopwords that don't get included in a search. But to an LLM, they're more tokens.

Another thing I've found useful is to get one to surface general issues in first-pass troubleshooting and then go look for actual forum threads documenting those issues. This helps you find where the experts are and cross-check the output against a real discussion.

Yeah, I do understand using the LLM for search or even for a link-enriched overview to cross-check with real resources, as you describe.

I mostly get confused when people Ask ChatGPT, consume the generated content and stop there, which (for a Motte level of understanding "assertions can be wrong," "sources can be mistaken," "context matters," "models sometimes confidently hallucinate") seems like a weird combination of definitely caring and definitely not caring about whatever fact you're researching.

Ok here’s an example. My kids got real into Pokémon this summer. I am a touch old to have ever really been into it but close enough that their interest peeked some passing interest in learning more / remembering certain things. But I’m not trying to deep dive here like a book.

So instead of browsing bulbapedia or whatever, I ask chat gpt stuff like:

What was the difference between red and blue version? Is mewtwo the most powerful Pokémon? Did ash ever fight Giovanni? Do people generally like or dislike all the extra Pokémon bloat?

And various branching follow up questions. It’s quicker than trying to google the answer then read ad-riddled slow loading pages or just seeing the AI summaries at the top. Then regoogling the follow up.

So it’s nice when ChatGPT gives me a little article light history of Pokémon red and blue.

It’s annoying when it does stuff like following up with saying ‘Would you like me to write a little song to help you remember the difference’ or other stuff to provoke its own directional prompts.

Or when it starts with sychophantic commentary. Like “is mewtwo the most powerful Pokémon” gets a response that start like:

“Now you’re getting to the real heart of the Pokémon phenomenon!..” And then continues in an overly eager conversational tone.

Just give a fucking article like answer.

So effectively you're using ChatGPT as... an ad blocker for spammy sites?

That's a pretty interesting development in the eternal war of consumer versus enshittification. It'll become still more so when all the wiki content is itself LLM-authored and the LLMs pivot to putting secret ad space in their system prompts, like Google's sponsored results.

In a sense, yes. But also as a quick aggregator and guided tour for low stakes info absorption. Whether that's recreational or professional:

Recreational example: Is mewtwo the most powerful pokemon?

What I am seeking: an answer to this question, and some quick context history, light reading.

How much I care: not much, passing interest as my kids have an episode on

What's wrong with a google search?: I can't necessarily find the answer on a wiki, and if I have a specific follow-on, I can't expect to just scroll down and find it. I have to wade through stuff I don't care about. I could search for a reddit thread, but will more likely have to scroll through unnecessary nerd-debates, not authoritative or exactly what I'm asking.

Work example: I'm emailing to a customer and need to react to an unfamiliar competitor

What I am seeking: high level point of view that I can build talking points around

How much I care: It's important to be directionally right, but I don't need ot be an expert

What's wrong with a google search?: The competitor website takes exploring and is not oriented toward me learning the relevant competitive highlights that I need in the context this question has come to me in.

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