@glyph Did you quote post something?

[jugglingwitheggs@mstdn.social]

@glyph

My old boss became very reliant on LLMs…even though she could clearly see their limitations in terms of the field we were working in. I’m talking 6 mths ago and I appreciate that improvements to LLms are occurring weekly if not daily. But while she lapped them up (she was dyslexic and used to try and hide it by getting others to do all her written communications) I found LLMs left me frustrated - a lot of time wasted on prompts that led to diminishing returns.

[uwehalfhand@norcal.social]

@glyph I wonder how long before "never used LLM" is a positive line item on a resume... 😂

[qurlyjoe@mstdn.social]

@mogul @_L1vY_ @glyph @datarama @xgranade

I’ve just been recommended this book, which looks to be what you’re talking about. I haven’t read it but it’s waiting for me at the library.
Stolen Focus, by Johann Hari. https://readingraphics.com/book-summary-stolen-focus-johann-hari/

[genehack@dementedandsadbut.social]

@glyph if you’re not familiar, searching for “variable intermittent reinforcement” might be informative. It’s the same mechanism behind slot machines, Facebook notifications, and email.

[glyph@mastodon.social]

@genehack https://blog.glyph.im/2025/08/futzing-fraction.html#:~:text=intermittent%20reward%20schedule

[glyph@mastodon.social]

@genehack the phrasing and adjacency to "slot-machine" as an adjective was not an accident :)

[randomgeek@masto.hackers.town]

@glyph so apparently I get to be glad I forgot to ever try kratom despite repeated urging from a friend several years back.

Thanks, ADHD!

[sungo@social.sungo.space]

@genehack @glyph and the on-call pager at shitty gigs...

[genehack@dementedandsadbut.social]

@glyph sure, and I read that post — that area is something where I have personal experience (some time at NIDA, learned a thing or two…) so the parallels resonate stronger for me, and I’m maybe more attuned than usual to the resulting dangers.

Glad you’re aware of all of that, I think it’s an aspect many folks miss.

[glyph@mastodon.social]

@genehack Gotcha. By the way, if there's a subtle distinction in between "variable intermittent reinforcement" and "intermittent reward schedule" as terms of art I'd definitely be curious to hear it — to my understanding they are strictly synonyms and used interchangeably.

[genehack@dementedandsadbut.social]

@glyph as far as I know — as an adjacent non-expert person — they’re synonyms.

The way it was explained to me involved a rat in a cage with a food pellet lever. If pushing the lever resulted in a food pellet every time, rat pushed the lever when it was hungry. If pushing equaled no pellet, rat pushed it a few time then lost interest and stopped forever. If the lever push was 50-50 (or even worse odds) food pellet vs nothing, rat would sit there all day and push the lever over and over.

[zimzat@mastodon.social]

@mitsuhiko @glyph A greenfield project seems like a good way to trial new technology but it's not a real world condition. Greenfield eventually turns to brownfield. Time and complexity shows where simple systems begin to break down.

Once that happens the AI tools become exponentially worse at making changes. Limited context windows. Complex logic changing over time. Updated dependencies.

And the human may lack the knowledge or ability to pick up the slack: https://leadershiplighthouse.substack.com/p/i-went-all-in-on-ai-the-mit-study

[shauna@social.coop]

@glyph @genehack

The main difference is that "reinforcement" and "reward" are not the same thing - reinforcement is a process meant to encourage a behavior, but it doesn't have to mean giving a reward. It could for instance involve removing an aversive stimulus - this is called negative reinforcement, one of the most misunderstood terms in psychology. So saying something is "intermittent reward" is more specific than saying it's "intermittent reinforcement".

[shauna@social.coop]

@glyph @genehack

This graph shows the 4 main kinds of operant conditioning. Reward covers the top left corner only, reinforcement covers the whole top half.

[genehack@dementedandsadbut.social]

@shauna @glyph okay, fair, so the stuff I’m aware of is specifically intermittent reinforcement, not reward.

[genehack@dementedandsadbut.social]

@shauna @glyph I think that maybe the thing that is missed here is that the case I’m talking about, the positive reinforcement is variably random, relative to a neutral input.

[shauna@social.coop]

@genehack @glyph

Oh that's true, "variable" and "intermittent" are not quite the same either. Variable and fixed are both kinds of intermittent schedule.

So there are two distinct subtle differences in those phrases

[glyph@mastodon.social]

@xgranade I should clarify that other ADHD meds are a great thing and I have even had good personal experience with some, and they are in fact way too hard to get. I didn’t mean to dismiss them with the “pill” comment (and it was a poor choice of words given that kratom rarely comes in pill form). the toxic allure of something like kratom is the promise of something easy which is actually a poison, I don’t want to lump that in with the reductive/wrong idea “psychoactive meds are bad”.

[jmeowmeow@hachyderm.io]

@glyph @xgranade The Internet Archive's offline backups from pre-LLM-content days. Pristine bits.

[condret@fedi.absturztau.be]

@glyph there is a good usecase, and that is repetitive GUI code. I don't use LLMs besides applying for jobs (i'm not willing to play the stupid hr games), and i also don't write software with a GUI. Why? Because it fucking sucks and is boring.I would be willing to let a LLM do that, so i can focus on the interesting parts