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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2330 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 2, 2026

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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So, I'm a bit late to the thread here, but I've been playing around with Gemini off-and-on the past few weeks.

Now, I keep encountering "AI boosters" extolling the universal utility of LLMs, that there's nobody who can't benefit from using an LLM as a tool in some portion of their job or daily life. Well, I've been looking for those uses, and I'm not seeing it.

So, my question: what is my personal use-case for an LLM? I'm a NEET, I don't code, I don't do any of the things I see people regularly using LLMs for.

Personally, I've found it useful for languages. I'm in the ealy stages of learning Latin and its decent at generating drills for practice if prompted right. I'm also listening to simple latin audiobooks and using LLPSI, and so far they ai hasnt made many mistakes. I suspect your mileage might vary for less regular or less well attested languages.

I can't answer your question, because I have no real use for it either.

The main use I found for it was as an editor (in the human sense) of my own writing, mostly adventures and content for my RPG club. Initially I used it for quick image generation for same, but then I realized what a backlash there was towards even casual non-commercial use (an NPC portrait sketch or a landscape mood piece), so I stopped out of social practicality.

But for editing and refining, it was a terrible tool. Firstly, every last thing I write is apparently chef's kiss and has great D&D energy. It also confidently assumes it knows the rules for Dungeon Crawl Classics when it fucking doesn't; when it does have a negative note on something, it's typically because it doesn't understand the mechanics, and it's reaching for a nit to pick because I told it to NOT glaze me constantly.

Validation is heady stuff; you're not going to find very many humans that will go through your own writing with a fine-tooth comb and rap about this or that idea, just like not many people will happily listen to you talk about a dream you had last night. I would up getting slightly addicted to the ego boost. Then I got annoyed and suspicious and started doing double-blind testing to catch it out not understanding things but glazing them anyways, kinda shattered my view of the things as anything other than a shoggoth wearing a smarmy yes-man mask.

I mostly use LLMs (including Gemini!) for math and software. I think by far the biggest third category of use cases for me is "better search engine":

  • Finding any existing name(s) for a concept I describe.
  • Finding old quotes, jokes, short stories, TV episodes, or historical events, when I only remember a description but not searchable exact words.
  • Finding TTRPG rules and DMing suggestions for tricky situations.
  • Locating data for particular statistics
  • Getting quick but detailed summaries when I'm curious about music/history/physics/sociology questions
  • Checking food safety rules, stain removal tips, musical instrument storage requirements, and injury care and pet care guidelines
  • Finding online course options for my kids
  • Planning trips
    • Locating that one canyon my parents took me to 40 years ago, based on a vague description, so I could take my kids
    • Finding fun "little" places to stop on the between-major-attraction legs of road trips that might otherwise be slogs
    • Finding hiking trails that match my kids' preferences, or in general searching destination options for amenities that you can't find hard-coded filters for
    • Learning "gotchas" about travel destinations ahead of time
    • Coming up with packing/prep checklists
  • Finding IRS rules based on a vague description of a situation
  • Quickly finding information on a list of professors based on a page with just photos

Including "much better reverse-image-search":

  • Identifying a foster kitten's skin problem by photo, and another cat's stomach troubles by description.
  • Identifying some "volunteer" garden plants by photo, and some animals by photo of their droppings.
  • Identifying garden pests by photo and figuring out how to safely get rid of them
  • Identifying strange things we saw on vacation, from photos

And some miscellaneous:

  • Figuring out how to better use my garden peppers
  • As a better thesaurus, refining synonym/antonym lists by ruling out or requiring particular connotations
  • Generative tasks
    • Making funny pictures and videos with my kids
    • Coming up with more interesting quiz problem ideas and game ideas for the math team I was coaching
    • Distilling long news pages into short summaries of the most important bits
  • For "handyman" problems
    • Figuring out how to work around problems with a hydroponics pump wearing out, then how to replace it with a more efficient setup when it finally broke
    • Figuring out to fix a broken tub/shower diverter valve
    • Figuring out how to fix a broken smartwatch
    • Troubleshooting a failing car ignition
    • Translating photos of foreign-language signs/instructions/machines, and figuring out how to use some of those machines

YMMV, of course, but there are skill issues for everyone here. One ironic skill issue of my own that only occurs to me belatedly: I probably spent 5 minutes skimming logs and typing up this list by hand, but if I instead give Gemini a 3-sentence prompt and do something else for 15 seconds, I get a list that's arguably a little better despite being more abbreviated.

I have debated asking it for recommendations to clean up my computer and email. Things have gotten out of hand.

⁎seethes in anger at how his mother has consistently failed to organize her computer and email despite repeated pestering⁎

"Here is everything I've ever written down, public and private. Tell me what patterns exist that I might have overlooked"

"I always wanted an app that would do X. Please build one and install it on my phone."

"I'm reading this book (pdf attached). Do a deep analysis of chapters 1-3, as if for a book club, and let's discuss"

"(attached photo of a product's ingredients) explain what all these ingredients do individually, and how they come together to form a complete product"

"Geoguessr this photo and explain your answer"

"create a custom tpot (twitter) character creator, complete with all the obscure classifications, kiki/bouba, apollo/dionysus, theatre kid/band kid, Kegan stages, the works"

"calculate the optimal talent build for this game given these specifics about its combat system. explain and show your work"

"help me unpack why I irrationally hate this popular thing"

"give me the tl;dr of this 2 hour youtube transcript so I can decide if it's worth my time"

"educate me on the background context I need to understand this current world event"

This is similar to how I use AI. I think an underrated use case is asking it to build browser extensions that can make small modifications to existing websites. It's the kind of thing that wouldn't be worth the effort without AI.

"I always wanted an app that would do X. Please build one and install it on my phone."

Sounds like a recipe for bricking my phone.

"I'm reading this book (pdf attached). Do a deep analysis of chapters 1-3, as if for a book club, and let's discuss"

Why?

"(attached photo of a product's ingredients) explain what all these ingredients do individually, and how they come together to form a complete product"

Why would I need that?

"Geoguessr this photo and explain your answer"

When would I ever need that?

"create a custom tpot (twitter) character creator, complete with all the obscure classifications, kiki/bouba, apollo/dionysus, theatre kid/band kid, Kegan stages, the works"

I have no clue what any of that even means.

"calculate the optimal talent build for this game given these specifics about its combat system. explain and show your work"

What game? Why?

"give me the tl;dr of this 2 hour youtube transcript so I can decide if it's worth my time"

That needs a youtube transcript available (I don't know how to get one).

"Help me cultivate the virtue of curiosity"

-- but, to your points:

  1. A custom app isn't going to brick your phone. They're sandboxed, and at worst, they'll run inefficiently and have to be killed.
  2. do you not read books? If you do read books, do you immediately comprehend everything about them? If so, I take it back.
  3. Are you not interested to know how things work? How products are made, and what goes into them? Maybe you already know everything. In that case, ignore the suggestion.
  4. If you want to know where that cool photo was taken, because maybe you want to go there someday? Maybe you're stalking someone. idk. Maybe you're bored and it's entertaining.
  5. the tpot character creator was supposed to be illustrative of how it can take pop cultural knowledge and work with it.
  6. what game? idk? What games are you playing? "Men are born for games. Nothing else". Maybe you're pretty sure a thing can be optimized but don't know how to math it out.
  7. You can get youtube transcripts by expanding the description, scrolling down to the "show transcript" button, then copy/pasting from the text window that pops up. There are probably also browser extensions that will do it, or you could ask an LLM to make one for you.

A custom app isn't going to brick your phone. They're sandboxed, and at worst, they'll run inefficiently and have to be killed.

Really? That's not what I hear from most the people I know — then again, the rest of my family uses iPhones, so Apple…

And besides, what would I even need a custom app for? I only got a smartphone, like, a year ago, because the decade-old LG flip-phone I had finally died. I use a phone to make calls. That's about it.

do you not read books? If you do read books, do you immediately comprehend everything about them?

If not everything, then enough that discussing it with an LLM is unlikely to provide much novel insight.

Are you not interested to know how things work? How products are made, and what goes into them?

Not really.

If you want to know where that cool photo was taken, because maybe you want to go there someday?

Where would I even see such a "cool photo"? And, no, I know I'm going to spend the rest of my life too poor to ever travel anywhere.

the tpot character creator was supposed to be illustrative of how it can take pop cultural knowledge and work with it.

That's not an explanation; and, again, what use would I have for that? For one, I disdain our "pop culture." Secondly, work with it to what end?

what game? idk? What games are you playing?

Absolutely none. That's my point.

You can get youtube transcripts by expanding the description, scrolling down to the "show transcript" button, then copy/pasting from the text window that pops up. There are probably also browser extensions that will do it, or you could ask an LLM to make one for you.

And that's something that's actually useful information. Thanks. (And I'll note — I got this useful information from asking a human being.)

I have a book "insight" prompt that goes like:

... I've already gathered up my own collection of notes of things I think worth commenting on, but what I want you to do is to go through the text yourself and pull out your own list of things that you think are worth highlighting, explaining interesting tidbits or identifying additional places for witticisms or places where literary connections can be made or what-have-you, as you deem fit. That'll help me compare against my own list to see whether I've covered all I think is good to cover. (I'm especially looking for cool niche details that I may likely have missed.) ...

This always pulls out a lot of things that I missed.

(I think in general, the better the author, the more you'll find they've have sprinkled clever connections, allusions, and foreshadowing, often in a kind of hidden way. The LLMs are easily already superhuman at pulling these details out.)

So, my question: what is my personal use-case for an LLM? I'm a NEET, I don't code, I don't do any of the things I see people regularly using LLMs for.

This description of you is pretty imprecise, but it clearly highlights one goal you're trying to achieve right now: to learn what a modern LLM could be useful for in your life. I think modern LLMs could be useful for you by providing an answer to that question, though I'd suggest using Claude or Chatgpt over Gemini. I think Grok might even be better than Gemini right now.

In the best set of current benchmarks I could quickly find, there are only four with leaderboard results for both Grok and Gemini, but Gemini is leading in 3 out of 4... which is definitely an underestimate; there are no leaderboards with Grok results but no Gemini results, and spot checking shows there's at least some Gemini leaderboard results where Grok was tested but no version made the leaderboard.

Gemini is not as competitive versus GPT (7 out of 17) or Claude (5 out of 16) though.

Subjectively it's pretty nice. I use Gemini to "self-" study advanced math (I'm a PhD, but applied math that leaned heavily into analysis, so my topology is weaker and my abstract algebra is pathetic), and even with its moderate/default setting I catch it in errors only about as often as it catches me, and its errors are probably technicalities more often than mine are. The other day I had it actually make an embarrassing error and double down, the first time it's done either since I started using it, but even then I just had to turn on "advanced reasoning" and retry for it to see its mistake.

though I'd suggest using Claude or Chatgpt over Gemini. I think Grok might even be better than Gemini right now.

AIUI, Grok requires Twitter. How much do Claude or Chatgpt cost? I use Gemini because it's free, and because my existing Google/gmail account means I don't have to sign up for anything new.

AIUI, Grok requires Twitter

You can have a Grok account with a normal e-mail. I'll caveat that it's not the smartest model out there, though it's generally less censored and the usage caps on the normal accounts are pretty generous.

And all of the major providers have free tiers, or there's LMArena as an option.

I pay for Claude & ChatGPT $20/month, but both have free versions IIRC. I don't recall if the free versions have access to the latest models, though. I think they might allow signing up through Google account, but I don't recall if I used that or set up separate usernames/passwords.

They can be useful for answering questions that do not fit well into conventional keyword-based Internet searches. A recent AAQC alleges that they are quite useful in language learning and have essentially reached competence in the editing even of full-length novels (given proper preparation). And, of course, they excel in generating text pornography (especially the local decensored models), as several users have testified in recent months (1 2 3).

They can be useful for answering questions that do not fit well into conventional keyword-based Internet searches.

And I don't really have any such questions, really.

A recent AAQC alleges that they are quite useful in language learning and have essentially reached competence in the editing even of full-length novels (given proper preparation).

No languages to learn, no novels to edit.

And, of course, they excel in generating text pornography

Not interested. Plus, the free models available online are mostly censored, and my laptop lacks the power to host most anything locally.

Most of what I use LLMs for is creating bespoke fiction. Have you ever had a story you wanted to read, but nobody has written? AI can do that. The top creative writing models (claude-fable-5, claude-opus-4-6-thinking, gemini-3.1-pro-preview, etc.) are really good at this. If you want smut, then your best bet is grok-4.20-beta1.

Alternatively, you can use them to create explainers in the style of your favorite authors (also a creative writing capability). Go ahead and ask them to explain economics like they are Scott Alexander, or write a moving guide in the voice of Eliezer Yudkowsky, or an introduction to anime in the style of Robin Hanson.

They can also do your research for you. Suppose you want a list of 1950s science fiction movies in color along with a short review written in the format of Leonard Maltin, including runtime and year of release? Done.

Have you ever had a story you wanted to read, but nobody has written? AI can do that.

As they say, "Press X to doubt." What I've seen of AI-written fiction is barely fanfic tier at best.

The top creative writing models (claude-fable-5, claude-opus-4-6-thinking, gemini-3.1-pro-preview, etc.) are really good at this.

And how much do those cost?

Alternatively, you can use them to create explainers in the style of your favorite authors (also a creative writing capability). Go ahead and ask them to explain economics like they are Scott Alexander, or write a moving guide in the voice of Eliezer Yudkowsky, or an introduction to anime in the style of Robin Hanson.

And why would I ever need this?

They can also do your research for you. Suppose you want a list of 1950s science fiction movies in color along with a short review written in the format of Leonard Maltin, including runtime and year of release? Done.

Again, why would I ever need this?

As they say, "Press X to doubt." What I've seen of AI-written fiction is barely fanfic tier at best.

Here's some samples of Fable 5 writing:

If you know any fanfic like that, hook me up; I'm always looking for good authors.

But, honestly? Looking at this and your other replies, I think that your problem is that you just don't want to do anything.

I haven't checked all of those links but from what I recall of your previous LLM Evangelion smut, it was just watering the prompt down with meaningless (and very aislop-coded) prose. If that's your criteria for good authors I suppose you can stick with AI. Any amateur "bad" human author would add more creative input on accident, let alone if he tried.

Well for starters, most fanfiction (or fiction of any kind) consists of more than 4k words stapled together from eight loosely connected vignettes.

I guess there's value in the specificity, but I feel like baseline Mottizan imagination could crank out one of these but better while taking a crap.

Sure, but you’d have to pay me.

I don’t actually have much confidence in my fiction skills. It’s not something I’ve practiced. I could regurgitate tropes in your direction, maybe sprinkle in some memes, but I suspect modern genAI would outperform me on this task.

Talking about personal consumption, not fivrr farming the requests to fellow posters. I mean that the real utility of this type of generative flash fiction is the hyper-specificity. But if you can already think of the hyperspecific thing you want, and the end result is so short and constrained, I'm not sure you get much value from reading the generated story compared to just spending 5 minutes daydreaming.

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