Chris Ellis @intrbiz@bergamot.social

@gerrymcgovern Ah, and since this seems to be making the rounds: it's time for my occasional reminder of one especially unpleasant aspect of the LLM hype storm.

LLMs take advantage of a faulty heuristic many (probably most, but don't have exact stats) people have about human intelligence: namely, someone or something that produces fluent and grammatically coherent text about a wide range of topics, on demand, is "intelligent".

This is a very compelling heuristic and also very wrong.

In the case of LLMs, it's wrong in the way we're all talking about here: it leads people to see thinking or reasoning in the statistical word salad these beasties produce.

But it's even more of a problem when people invert the heuristic and turn it into "someone or something is *not* producing fluent text about a wide range of topics, therefore they are *not* intelligent". This mirror-world version causes enormous social harm to people who for whatever reason (autism, selective mutism, etc.) can't speak the way people expect they would be able to "if they were smart".

Some pictures from the lightning talks round we had after lunch.

Join us for an afternoon with more talks and debates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJYEuIpzch4

Pictures by honkingelephant.com

@pgstef #PostgreSQL Person of the Week interview with Stefan Fercot: https://postgresql.life/post/stefan_fercot/

@floord #PostgreSQL Person of the Week interview with Floor Drees: https://postgresql.life/post/floor_drees/

@intrbiz #PostgreSQL Person of the Week interview with Chris Ellis: https://postgresql.life/post/chris_ellis/

Edco Wallet opening the PGDay Lowlands Warmup #Meetup at Lunatech in #Rotterdam

#PostgreSQL #Conference

Floor Drees ( @floord ) doing Social Media at the PGDay Lowlands Warmup #Meetup at Lunatech in #Rotterdam

#PostgreSQL #Conference

Josef Machytka ( @JosefMachytka ) presenting a Lightning Talk at the PGDay Lowlands Warmup #Meetup at Lunatech in #Rotterdam

#PostgreSQL #Conference

Kaarel Moppel presenting a Lightning Talk at the PGDay Lowlands Warmup #Meetup at Lunatech in #Rotterdam

#PostgreSQL #Conference

Jan Karremans presenting a Lightning Talk at the PGDay Lowlands Warmup #Meetup at Lunatech in #Rotterdam

#PostgreSQL #Conference

Stefan Fercot ( @pgstef ) speaking at the PGDay Lowlands Warmup #Meetup at Lunatech in #Rotterdam

#PostgreSQL #Conference

Chris Ellis ( @intrbiz ) speaking at the PGDay Lowlands Warmup #Meetup at Lunatech in #Rotterdam

#PostgreSQL #Conference

New Banksy!
Royal Courts of Justice (1/2)
London

Next week, I'll be speaking at 🇬🇧 @postgresuk about #PostgreSQL Row-Level Security on Tuesday 9th Sept. Don't miss this great event in London, CU there! 🐘🔥

https://pgday.uk/events/pgdayuk2025/schedule/session/174-row-level-security-sucks-can-we-make-it-usable/

#OpenSource #Database #Postgres #PGDayUK

🚀 The program for PGConf.EU 2025 is live!
Featuring big names in PostgreSQL and rising stars you won’t want to miss. 🌟

See you in Riga, 21–24 Oct! 🇱🇻
👉 https://www.postgresql.eu/events/pgconfeu2025/schedule/

#PostgreSQL #PGConfEU2025 #opensource #ITlatvia #Latviaevents