LLM Brain Rot and You

It's been a while since I last posted on AI, LLMs, and chat bots. Here's what I've been up to. I use Gemini to help me write business letters, and at work I use ChatGPT as a SQL and AMPScript code assist tool. ChatGPT is decent for helping a non software developer learn the quirks, in's, and out's of programming languages and scripts. It has not been smooth sailing. Each day I use ChatGPT with version history enabled, it seems to forget what it just said in its last response to a question or prompt and automatically starts correcting itself if you provide it with its own SQL query to make updates to.

The hallucinations are by far the worst bug in the LLM. ChatGPT proactively adds field names and table aliases that don't exist in the original query or prompt. It also uses SQL commands that aren't available in SFMC's version of SQL. And, after I have already specified that the query needs to work with SFMC's SQL (based on T-SQL), it gives me SQL that I already know can't run in SFMC. I have to remind it each time it does this with an additional prompt that the SQL can't start with "with" before "select". 

Anyhow, even with its flaws, dev time has been greatly reduced from a few days to a few hours in most cases.

The prompt you give it is only as good as your understanding of how a tool or process works. Using an LLM is a lot like using a mobile device app's GPS. Sure, the GPS gets you to your location with turn by turn directions, but it doesn't teach you how to navigate a map by yourself. How many times have you heard people say, oh I don't know where [location] is, I just ask the maps app to get me there?

It won't help you think critically or write professionally unless you ask it how it analyses text or data before giving you a response. Even then, it seems bound by programmed how to.

7% Capital Gains Tax and now a 9.9% income tax on high earners

In 2023, the WA state legislature passed a 7% capital gains tax on the sale or exchange of long-term capital assets such as stocks, bonds, business interests, or other investments and tangible assets (source). This led to the exodus of several very large companies and high net worth individuals relocating out of state.

All it would take for the WA state legislator to lower the income threshold for the 9.9% income tax (Senate Bill 6346) is to pass a new amendment bill through the standard legislative process.

Our state has an unhealthy appetite for spending with the pretext that it is for social causes.

Milton Friedman on spending money

"There are four ways in which you can spend money. 

You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. 

Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. 

Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! 

Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government." 

--Milton Friedman 

The US Tax System Described With Beer Analogy

I posted this on another blog site back in 2009, and it is still relevant today.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.