> Joining “thinking critically” and a tool that has no truth basis is concerning. You may as well put numbers inside a raffle box and just take one out instead of using a calculator.
LLMs can have as much truth basis as humans have. We humans have fallible memory, all manner of cognitive biases, varying degrees of deceptive tendencies, misunderstandings, heartfelt beliefs in things we cannot prove...
And nonetheless, looking at art, reading books, talking to children, interacting with nature -- can all prompt us to question our previous assumptions and productively challenge ideas we might have otherwise thought settled. Seeing these different perspectives, however grounded or not they may be in truth and physics, is part of critical thinking.
A calculator will only get you so far. If you're looking for LLMs to tell you the "correct" answer, then you may be disappointed. But if you want leads to follow, ideas to consider, pointers to existing research, experiments to run, then it can be very helpful, similarly to talking to a very knowledgeable colleague. In the end, so far at least, it's still up to the human to make good decisions, based on evidence.
LLMs can have as much truth basis as humans have. We humans have fallible memory, all manner of cognitive biases, varying degrees of deceptive tendencies, misunderstandings, heartfelt beliefs in things we cannot prove...
And nonetheless, looking at art, reading books, talking to children, interacting with nature -- can all prompt us to question our previous assumptions and productively challenge ideas we might have otherwise thought settled. Seeing these different perspectives, however grounded or not they may be in truth and physics, is part of critical thinking.
A calculator will only get you so far. If you're looking for LLMs to tell you the "correct" answer, then you may be disappointed. But if you want leads to follow, ideas to consider, pointers to existing research, experiments to run, then it can be very helpful, similarly to talking to a very knowledgeable colleague. In the end, so far at least, it's still up to the human to make good decisions, based on evidence.