LLaMatters = LLaMa + Matters 🔗

ChatGPT & Beyond 🔗

As a user, ChatGPT is helpful. For many, it is an easy way to answer detailed questions or write essays and emails. But for those who wish to learn more, it can be a gateway into the world of large language models (LLMs), generative text, and context-aware responses. ChatGPT by OpenAI is a fantastic tool and at the moment, far ahead of its competitors, but it is just one way of using conversational language to interact with computers. There is so much more happening in this field, especially in online communities like r/LocalLLaMA, that is redefining how we will eventually write and use software, but is not common-knowledge yet. With this blog, I hope to share my thoughts on where this field is going in non-programmer terms, how others could use or rather improve their use of these tools, and what I personally hope to get/make for myself.

Background 🔗

I have always loved languages, dictionaries, poetry, essays, word games, and crossword puzzles. Years ago, I analyzed US Presidential speeches and built a sliding tag cloud for fun. Few years later, I analyzed how people talk on Twitter to build a better keyboard for disabled users. I also built some word search tools and have been writing a personal blog for 20+ years now. I have been programming professionally since the mid-90s and have sunk my teeth into everything from graphic design, 3D animation, event scheduling, databases, web apps, MRP/ERPs, healthcare EMRs, mobile apps, video aggregator, and more. And I say all of this only to showcase that LLMs are the first thing in years to absolutely blow my mind with their potential.

Motivation 🔗

Tech has been my life and motivation for as long as I can remember, but I was losing interest over the last decade. I was getting bored with the same old social media this, mobile notification that. But LLMs have reinvigorated my passion for tech, and I am excited to see where it goes. I hope you will join me on this journey.

On a sidenote, I’m typing this in Visual Studio Code with GitHub Co-Pilot enabled, and it keeps offering to write the next few sentences for me. It suggested “I’m not sure if I should be excited or scared.” as the next sentence here. Wrong! As an optimist, I’m excited, and as a programmer, I’m thrilled.

Inspiration 🔗

I wrote a now-archived (and undoubtedly obsolete) tech blog between 2005-2007 and have wanted to get back into it for many years but could not find a topic that excited me enough. I’ve delved into every hot new tech that has come along since then, from blockchain and home automation to serverless development and Arduino / Raspberry Pi, but didn’t feel like I had much to contribute beyond being an early adopter. But then I came across the articles below, and I was hooked. I knew I had to start writing again.

• Building god by Rohit Krishnan
• One Useful Things by Prof. Ethan Mollick
• Things I’m Learning While Training SuperHOT by Kaio Ken
• AI and the automation of work by Ben Evans

Disclaimer 🔗

I am deeply sensitive to the downsides of mass adoption of AI/GPT, especially to the creators whose works are sucked into these models and people whose careers will be replaced with even more automation. However, opining about such matters is well above my level of expertise and could in fact be more insulting than helpful. So I will leave that to the experts and focus on novel applications of LLMs instead, especially ones that help us better understand the world around us.