I want to like LLMs. People are clearly betting trillions on them, and if those bets go sour, it will be bad for everyone. But my impression right now is that a large percentage of LLM use is for spamming, scamming, and cheating on homework. On the plus side, some software engineers save a couple minutes here and there with a slightly nicer autocomplete, white collar workers can get some advice on email style, and maybe it helps with sifting through millions of pages of legal discovery.
Overall, this stuff by itself really doesn't seem world-changing to me. People should continue learning the same basic skills that have been valuable in the past. Speculation on how it will change society seems about as baseless and premature as guesstimating how society will change if quantum computers can somehow solve all problems instantly, ignoring the fact that they almost certainly can't.
I am hopeful for some of the more advanced applications, e.g. proof assistance in math, but I think it will take a while to know what the killer apps are there, and what their impact will be.
Overall, this stuff by itself really doesn't seem world-changing to me. People should continue learning the same basic skills that have been valuable in the past. Speculation on how it will change society seems about as baseless and premature as guesstimating how society will change if quantum computers can somehow solve all problems instantly, ignoring the fact that they almost certainly can't.
I am hopeful for some of the more advanced applications, e.g. proof assistance in math, but I think it will take a while to know what the killer apps are there, and what their impact will be.