(I keep delivering this as a quip, here's a bit more) First order of business - is 'tool' going to have an interesting, distinguishing and thus illuminative meaning or be a mere platitudinous stand-in for "anything useful"? We'll save tool as "anyone/thing that can be exploited" for the AI titans, f
So now I have a bag of dice. I use them to predict something and roll each of them 1000 times. I don’t want randomness in that case, I want statistics.
My point is about intent and outcome. If you intend to get statistics and roll a bag of dice the outcome is always a bunch of random numbers you could use for statistics.
If you ask an llm to give you 1000 random numbers it could just decide that “I gave you just 6es to make your calculations easier”.
A tool will give you a predicatable output, even if the output is just randomnes. You can predict that the output of 6 dices are 6 numbers from 1-6. An llm could give you anything. It could give you 6 numbers from 1-6 but it could also give you 4 numbers from 1-9 and the letter b.
When you roll dice, you use a tool (the dice), and they’re random.
But with the dice you explicitly want the randomnes. With an llms you usually want something else.
You could technically use them for randomnes, but they are retty terrible at randomnes.
So now I have a bag of dice. I use them to predict something and roll each of them 1000 times. I don’t want randomness in that case, I want statistics.
One dice is a tool, but a bag of dice isn’t?
My point is about intent and outcome. If you intend to get statistics and roll a bag of dice the outcome is always a bunch of random numbers you could use for statistics.
If you ask an llm to give you 1000 random numbers it could just decide that “I gave you just 6es to make your calculations easier”.
A tool will give you a predicatable output, even if the output is just randomnes. You can predict that the output of 6 dices are 6 numbers from 1-6. An llm could give you anything. It could give you 6 numbers from 1-6 but it could also give you 4 numbers from 1-9 and the letter b.