Tuesday Tip #51: Experiment with LLMs 🧪


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👉 Tip #51: Experiment with LLMs

You’ve heard of ChatGPT, right? If you’re reading this newsletter, you’ve probably tried it out, and perhaps even use it on a regular basis.

But what about Claude? Or Gemini? Or Llama? Or Grok? Or Nova?

There are TONS of Large Language Models (LLMs), and it seems like every day a new one comes out.

The choice is overwhelming, and so ChatGPT continues to be the market leader among both businesses and consumers, due in part to OpenAI’s superior brand recognition.

Side note on terminology: OpenAI is the company behind ChatGPT, ChatGPT is the user interface (UI), and OpenAI offers models such as GPT-4o and o1-preview. In other words, ChatGPT is a UI for an LLM (not an LLM itself), but that distinction is unimportant in many contexts.

Regardless of whether an LLM ever reaches Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), they're going to become an increasing part of our lives. As such, your future self will thank you for becoming comfortable with LLMs today, rather than waiting a few more years!


🏆 Which LLM is best?

There’s no one model that is superior across all use cases. Rather, each model has its strengths and weaknesses, plus costs vary widely!

Here’s the best model for each task according to my favorite AI newsletter, The Neuron (affiliate link):

If cost and speed are a concern, here are The Neuron's top picks:


🧪 How to experiment with LLMs

If you find the lists above to be overwhelming, don’t fret! There’s no need to sign up for a bunch of LLMs right away.

However, I would encourage you to at least start trying out LLMs and see how you feel about them. And with a bit of practice, you’ll begin to learn when they are useful and how to get the best results from them!

Action item: Try out Chatbot Arena. It’s free and doesn’t require an account. Here’s how it works:

  • In battle mode, you chat with two anonymous models and then vote which one is better.
  • In side-by-side mode, you get to choose which models to chat with.
  • The leaderboard shows a ranking of the best LLMs based on human preference.

This is a fun way to see how models vary, and learn if you have a preference for certain ones!

Next week, I’ll show you an even better way to try out different LLMs!


See you next week!

- Kevin

P.S. How good are you at PowerPoint?

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