site banner

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 7, 2024

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.

3
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Since people keep talking about/recommending them, how do you use an LLM? I mean, most everything I search online is paywalled, and the free "AI tools" I've tried weren't very impressive (and ended up either shut down or paywalled)?

Could somebody give some ELI5-level guidance and/or recommendations?

I don't find them enormously useful, but two specific uses for me:

  1. when reading a textbook, ask it to explain some passage (e.g. on a weird C++ detail) (usually helpful)
  2. write code in some language/framework, given approximately that code in another language/framework (hit or miss)

Again, not what I'm asking.

What LLM do you use to do these? How do you access it? How much does it cost? How, in detail, do you do these things you list?

ChatGPT and Bard, mostly the former, unpaid version, through browser. Sample transcript on the diamond problem in C++ multiple inheritance: https://chat.openai.com/share/603e851e-daa0-4c4b-81d7-1b8332897694