Lack of understanding of how Large Language Models (LLMs) function

Signals over time

2 observed signals across 1 sources, tracked for 0 days. Confidence: low.

What people are saying Observed

• “My experience is that sota LLMs are pretty bad at confidence and priorities and things. I write harnesses that do decision steps and regularly use competing models - from the major vendors and open source models. And I have learned that if I can isolate a problem and put it into a straightforward prompt then Gemini 2.5 flash - the most basic and cheap commercial model - is actually very reliable. The newer models take longer, cost more and are really bad at saying they don’t know or nothing. You can ask them for a confidence score but they just hallucinate it! I would like to try out decision models like Jev. The way the decision models approach the problems I work with seems a much more promising fit.”

  Hacker News · complaint

• “(Edit: I fully agree with your comment, just wanted to pick on a small point) Thing is, we don’t understand how LLMs work. Not really. And everyone at the forefront of this space has said so. We know how to grow them but that is not anything like the same thing as understanding why or how they actually function. Our level of understanding of LLM intelligence is only slightly ahead of our understanding of the neuroscience of human intelligence, and no one would say we understand that at all. So I think describing LLMs as magic at this point is absolutely appropriate.”

  Hacker News · frustration