Post B08qGu6KPqHvzh4WJs by josh@squ.alid.pw
 (DIR) More posts by josh@squ.alid.pw
 (DIR) Post #B08qGsV4MstH1qdFbc by mjd@mathstodon.xyz
       2025-11-11T16:14:07Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       I will be going for a sleep study on Saturday.  This is a real conversation I just had with my sleep doctor:DOC: it's best to avoid stimulants (like caffeine, adderall, or anything that might keep you awake) for at least 2 weeks before the testME: Is "2 weeks" correct? That seems like quite a lot.  For example, the half-life of caffeine is usually reckoned around five hours, so abstaining for two weeks beforehand seems excessive.DOC: You’re right, two weeks feels excessive - it's our standard recommendation but it's not required (or even feasible at times. Do your best.  For most stimulants, including caffeine, stopping 24-48 hours before the sleep study is usually enough.This sounded strikingly like an LLM conversation!  (I suppose it's possible that it is one, although I hope not.)I wonder if some of the problems people have with LLM hallucination are because they are too trusting of authority _in general_.My real success with the LLM started to come only when I began to treat it _as if_ it were a person.  I found that when I thought of it that way, it was easy to adopt an appropriate skepticism about anything it said.
       
 (DIR) Post #B08qGu6KPqHvzh4WJs by josh@squ.alid.pw
       2025-11-11T16:36:21.817932Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @mjd right, on the occasional times I use an LLM, I treat it as if it's a random person on an IRC channel and take its responses with an appropriate grain of salt
       
 (DIR) Post #B08qH0SAnXKLhBL3Ca by mjd@mathstodon.xyz
       2025-11-11T16:33:11Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       And in particular, Claude is not an authority, it's just another person, who, like other people I work with, has strong and weak areas, areas of greater and lesser expertise, one who makes mistakes that I have to backstop, but who can also backstop my mistakes.I demand and expect perfection from grep and cp, from my window system, and from my editing software. But it is unreasonable to expect perfection from my co-workers. Treating Claude like software invites unreasonable expectations that are sure to disappoint me. But as a coworker I find that Claude is very satisfactory. Again, it is not a human! But in many ways better dealt with _as if_ it were a human.