David Gerard: "Microsoft refuses pull request to put documentation in readable table form because LLMs are bad at parsing tables…"
David Gerard: "Microsoft refuses pull request to put documentation in readable table form because LLMs are bad at parsing tables…"
Microsoft refuses pull request to put documentation in readable table form because LLMs are bad at parsing tables https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/WSL/pull/2021
Wow. By the way, it got merged in the end and they said "rest assured, humans are my #1 priority"...
Rest assured, fellow humans, you are my #1 priority when the day comes.
This is my favorite sentence from his replies.
I've learned today that you are sensitive to ensuring human readability over any concerns in regard to AI consumption
I mean this comes from Microsoft... I'm one of the Linux nerds here, so my perspective might be skewed 🙃 But I get that feeling a lot when interacting with Microsoft products. Like finding useful log data to debug an issue. It's either not there in the first place, or completely incomprehensible and doesn't even tell you a cause or where to look. Even after googling. I don't think any of that is made for humans 😅
Certainly!
I thought they would give some meaningless response and people prodding them for a real reason would get the truth out eventually. But no, they just come out and say it in their first response:
Thanks for the contribution here and appreciate your attention to detail. We have decided to keep as-is.. part of that decision is that more and more folks are using AI chat to access guidance and tables don't always translate well in that context.
Many people use LLMs to parse documentation? Is that really the case?
I think that's referring to Microsoft Copilot. I've heard some people use it. General narrative is: machines will replace humans anyway, same for programmers. And since Microsoft sells these AI services, they'll surely tell the story this way.
If they can get AI to get rid of all the junk videos on YouTube that now pop up when you want to troubleshoot any mechanical or digital problem, then it will finally have a purpose.
Yes many people use LLMs to parse documentation. That is really the case.