LLMs and Mindset Myths - an Introduction

Over the next several issues of this newsletter, we’ll be examining some of the beliefs that have sprung up about Large Language Model platforms (LLMs) - what they can and cannot do, what the nature and purpose of them is, what their relation to us is. We’ve identified ten or so types of what we’ve come to call Mindset Myths surrounding AI generally and LLMs in particular that have come to define and drive how we conceive of, comprehend, and relate to this technology. While this might seem like a purely theoretical or even trivial concern, we at ZeroWidth do not believe this to be the case - the ways we understand things shape the decisions we make about them, and the subsequent actions we take. With a technology as impactful and far-ranging as LLMs, a technology - perhaps the first, really - that can be said to improve and expand upon itself, the manner in which we engage with it and the beliefs we hold about it come to be very consequential. Taken together, these tens or hundreds of thousands of decisions, propelled as they by underlying belief, aggregate to form the basis of broad practice and policy.

The truest subject of this newsletter is the relationship between people and this technology. We’re not here to not to wonk out about the tech specs of LLMs (Pete is the only member of the ZeroWidth squad capable of doing so - John is Generation Can Read Cursive) - there are plenty of places offering that; we’re not here to conjecture about the state of the field in a decade’s time. In fact, given the pace of change, the “role” of “futurist” (a “field” that might as well be called The Professionally Vague, or Dependably Wrong) - lord knows there are plenty of places to find stuff; we’re not here to crypto-bro proselytize about some new branch of (Godless) Prosperity Theology where LLMs are performing some (imagined) form of automated and (impossibly) lucrative content generation while you get daiquiri-hammered on the deck of your yacht - sweet heaven knows there’s MORE than enough of that stuff available to you.

If we examine any among the (growing, God help us) number of pronouncement-makers and prognosticators ostensibly analyzing the field of AI, we find as much attempted persuasion as we do anything resembling a serious examination of the present state of the technology and its prospects - people, in other words, attempting to shape your beliefs about this subject. Here at Distributed Cognition, we aren’t shilling for any one position, we’re not advocates or evangelists - the aim of our ongoing inquiry is to encourage the reader - you, individual human - to identify and assess your beliefs about LLMs and to determine for yourself if they square with what you conclude to be true.

We’re attempting to contend with the nature and outcomes of the interplay between us and LLMs. The once general-use phrase “human centered” has grown narrow over time and through specified use - “human centered design” is a by now familiar (even thumb-worn) phrase intended to speak to a specific philosophical approach to design, a set of considerations and precepts in a particular form of problem-solving. What this newsletter posits is the need of some equivalent set of reflections and recommendations - an approach that is human-centered in the broadest sense. What we resolve to offer is an arena of ongoing inquiry that explores the intersection of people with these platforms, and to demonstrate ways each partner in this relationship - human and LLM - can unlock the fullest potential of the other.

In order for this to be possible, though, requires a deep understanding of the nature of the relationship and the direction it’s taking. Understanding this demands that we observe our own thinking about it. So perhaps “human directed” is a more apt and applicable phrase for expressing what we’re after, here. Over the next several editions of this newsletter, we’ll discuss each of the Mindset Myths we’ve identified and the ways in which these can limit and even distort our comprehension of LLMs and their capabilities, and to start devising a clearer sense of our own obligations and expectations in this relationship, a kind of Code of Cognitive Conduct, if you will.

As you read through these next few issues, our hope is that you’ll begin to notice the Myths we’ve identified at play in your own interactions with LLMs, and that - since we don’t presume to have the final word on any of this stuff, that you’ll let us know about comparable Myths that you’ve witnessed or fallen prey to. This newsletter strives to serve as one voice among many within the field, to number among those that join us in (we hope) considering deeply the many questions that arise at what is still the dawn of this technology and our relationship with it.