Alpha over LLMs

Source

On a recent podcast, Patrick McKenzie mentioned the idea of "alpha over LLMs": does a publisher produce text with any meaningful advantage over asking an LLM? I think this is an important question for anybody trying to regularly write, even if the readership is small (eg this blog). I interpret this as:

  • People should not put out content which is obviously wrong and can be corrected by an LLM (eg "I have theory X" where asking an LLM provides clear and convincing counter-arguments to X).
  • People should also not put out content which is worse than the answer you get from asking an LLM (eg the same content but explained less clearly).

I will generally try to uphold this principle in future blog posts.