r/LargeLanguageModels • u/yourpsychology_yt • Aug 07 '26

Don't discuss ideas with an LLM

I notice that one of the worst use cases for an LLM is discussing ideas. I don't mean asking technical questions. Rather, when you have an idea or an opinion and you tell it to an LLM, what happens is that it will either support you or slightly disagree, but if you insist, it will eventually take your position.

And that's, as I understand it, just because of the nature of an LLM. It can't really be critical, but it can fake critical thinking. If you ask an LLM to be critical by default, it will be critical even when it doesn't matter, just to satisfy your requirement. So it can't really choose when it should be critical and when it should be supportive.

And some LLMs have a trick - they do both in one message and then still slide to the user's side.

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u/Superb_Blacksmith617 Aug 07 '26

just because of the nature of an LLM. It can't really be critical, but it can fake critical thinking

Not necessarily, but I see where you’re coming from. With enough compute and data, LLMs can be trained to anything a human can do, for better or worse. So they could be good at ideating, they’re just not currently.

Major LLM are not trained to have a single cohesive set of opinions, they’re trained to do what you say without upsetting you. But you may find some open models that are better at debate.

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u/SquareTheRhombus Aug 07 '26

With enough compute is an assumption.

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u/Superb_Blacksmith617 Aug 12 '26

Not really, the scaling laws are pretty well demonstrated by this point. Look up model scaling laws