Thoughts on LLMs

I am a distributed systems researcher. I mostly read and write about distributed systems and lightweight formal methods. But as my blog definition says, the blog is about "distributed systems broadly defined and other curiosities". The last two years, LLMs were unavoidably the biggest part of those curiosities. However, I was still surprised how much I had written about them, when I went looking for a line I remembered coining. Something like, "LLMs are good at mediocrity, but really fast".I couldn't find the line, but instead I found a pile of my takes on LLMs scattered across the blog, and I figured it was worth collecting them into an index. So here it is, enjoy! I also threw in my overall take on LLMs that has stayed constant through their four years of reign so far. Hot takes on LLMsOur Collective Bike Shed Moment (June 26)Are We Becoming Architects or Butlers to LLMs? (Feb 26)How LLMs may affect academic writing (Feb 26) Agentic AI and The Mythical Agent-Month (Jan 26)The…