The Difference Between LLM and True AI, And What That Difference Means For Business
If you’ve been in a company meeting lately, you may have heard a lot of buzz about LLMs and true AI. It can be confusing to distinguish between the two, but being able to do so can have an impact on your business. You not only want to be able to distinguish between the two, but you want to know how to use them to benefit your business, not harm it. We’re going to take a look at both LLMs and True AI to see how they measure up so you can have a better understanding and make smart business choices.
What is an LLM?
An LLM is a Large Language Model. Think of it as the ones that power Gemini or ChatGPT. This can be beneficial to use in some cases, but you still have to be careful when using it. An LLM is great at predicting the next piece of information based on a high volume of data. This can be helpful to summarize multi-page legal briefs in a matter of seconds. It can also handle the majority of your customer service queries.
Here’s what else an LLM can do for you:
Write marketing copy, reports, and emails
Summarize documents
Answer questions
Generate code and explanations
Here’s the catch… LLMs are made for plausibility, rather than truth, meaning that they can give false information if it sounds like something that would be likely from a statistical standpoint. It does not know things the way a human would be able to distinguish the difference.
What is True AI?
True AI generally refers to an artificial general intelligence. Different from an LLM, a True AI would be able to reason through a problem. It can take a concept learned in one area and apply it to another one it may have never seen or heard of before. True AI can comprehend beyond pattern recognition and has the ability to logically evaluate new situations. True AI doesn’t just respond to prompts. It can set its own sub-goals to see the larger picture, something an LLM does not have the capacity to do.
Our current AI systems excel at specific tasks, but still lack true comprehension and self-awareness. So, while many people may think we have reached true AI, we still have not. Today’s AI systems, including LLMs, are narrow tools. They’re great at certain tasks and completely clueless outside of them. They don’t know when they’re wrong, and they don’t understand the consequences.
The Differences Between LLM and True AI
As we said above, an LLM is a predictive text engine, while a True AI is a reasoning tool.
Here are several key differences to consider:
LLMs do not have the ability to understand content the way humans do. They mimic understanding by relying on statistical data patterns. Their answers are based on probability, with no concept of real-world models.
LLMs are meant for text-based tasks such as translating and summarizing. True AI aims to have generalized, multi-domain cognitive abilities, similar to humans.
LLMs will forget information once the conversation exceeds their capacity. They have a limited short-term memory.
True AI would have the ability to perceive situations and interact with others, while LLMs simply process information.
True AI would be able to understand context and consequences; LLMs do not.
LLMs can increase productivity, reduce time spent on easy tasks, enabling people to do more.
Based on the differences above, if businesses put all of their faith in an LLM as a reasoning agent to make important financial decisions, it’s not going to end well. The LLM may try to do the job, but does not have the capability to do it correctly. For LLM outputs to make sense and be useful, you need to have a human fact-checker. With True AI, a human would still be supervising the output, but it does not have to worry about correcting basic mistakes. Businesses need to stop treating LLMs as' human genius’. They’re not there yet and will likely not get there anytime soon.
When & When Not to Use LLMs
There are many scenarios when you should not use LLMs. These include:
Any Situations That Demand Extreme Accuracy - LLMs can make frequent math errors and should not be trusted for precise engineering.
Using LLMs as a Search Engine - LLMs as a search engine can be unreliable. Use traditional search engines to find cited and verified information.
Data Validation - LLMs are trained on past data. They are not reliable for real-time information. They can miss current events and updates that are vital.
Tasks Requiring True Ethics - Since LLMs don’t have the capability for ethical reasoning, they can accidentally allow harmful content as an output. None of this should be taken at face value.
While those are ways that LLMs should not be used, here are some tips to make an LLM work for you:
Use LLMs to help your employees with emails, reports, and documentation.
Use AI to organize the data, but human intelligence to make clear decisions.
Don’t rely on LLMs to create a strategy for you; they don’t have the capability.
By keeping these things in mind, you can ensure that your business uses LLMs in the best ways possible.
The Bottom Line
Businesses can utilize tools, such as LLMs, to increase production, as long as they don’t rely on them to be humans. While True AI may be on the horizon, businesses need to learn how to use what exists now. This means understanding what tools can and can’t do and using them thoughtfully. All of this needs to be done while keeping humans in the driver’s seat. If you want to learn more about how to increase productivity in your workplace, contact Turnkey today. We have real solutions to make your business as efficient as possible. Discover what we can do for you today.
