Historical analogies for large language models
April 15, 2024
How will large language models (LLMs) change the world
?No one knows. With such uncertainty, a good exercise is to look for historical analogies—to think about other technologies and ask what would happen if LLMs played out the same way.
I like to keep things concrete, so I’ll discuss the impact of LLMs on writing. But most of this would also apply to the impact of LLMs on other fields, as well as other AI technologies like AI art/music/video/code.
If you think Large Language Models will have significant impact on the world, good or otherwise, it makes sense to think about how, and why, for a bit.
One common way of thinking about something new is to think of it in terms of things that have come before. It will be wrong, but it may be useful.
This piece critiques ten common historical analogies used to think about LLMs and their impact.
