Listening to this Cory Doctorow interview . [1]
I like his hypothesis for why the foundation model companies are valued so disproportionately highly, that the aristocratic class really really really doesnt want to depend on the working class and they see a way out to finally do without them. That makes sense!
But yea reality is , the current models are really really really good at giving you what you “say” you want, which is far from what you need most of the time.
Sort of like a reverse Mick Jagger .
Getting what you want often requires a two way conversation, with reality.
Usually because you dont know what you want until you actually see it and then you can snap your fingers and say “yea thats it”, but until then usually its “no hmm thats not quite right”.
Is this a fundamental limitation
No matter the use case, not being able to just state what you want on the first try is the reason why doing anything in “real life” is hard.
If you could point to another thing, “I want that” , then it already exists so there’s no need to make it, you can just buy it. Okay though you can also want to reverse engineer another thing and even then you have to treat the template like a black box , and take it apart if you can.
Specification based prompting
This might be a good path for getting what you want! Use a very specific descriptive non-prose language. This is sort of like the so called cookie cutter approach for using say Hugo to build a website, or Wordpress. But more generic.
You likely again will be fiddling with the knobs to get it to be just right, the website that is. But what if you are building an airplane and everything in it? This is starting to feel like now we’re 3D printing an airplane , and then we have all of the stuff we remember we need in an airplane. There are the wheels, they are made out of rubber. The plane has windows and stairs. There are a lot of chairs and places for your bags. There are bathrooms.
We haven’t gotten to the engine yet and the twirly thing that is very loud . I’m tired now maybe I didn’t really want to 3D print this airplane without its engine .
Yea I think closing the gap between what you verbalize or specify that you want , and what you end up needing, is a many step thing.
references
- https://youtu.be/r_ktaPutkjM
- Rolling Stones, You Cant Always Get What You Want