Given humans have not already achieved this clarity of communication, when we are social animals, have been utterly dependant on each other for the entire existence of our species, the importance of communication was literally a matter of life and death, and for the vast majority of that time we only communicated through speech (written word dates to approx 4k BCE).....then why would an LLM, or any human-machine interface for that matter achieve this as a side effect of usage?
I fully accept that people, everyone, can be trained in precise speech, but we aren't talking about purposeful training here.
You're putting the cart very much before the horse here.
For what you describe to happen requires global ubiquity. For ubiquity to happen, it must be something with sufficient utility that people from all walks of time, and in all contexts (ie not just professional) gain value from it.
For that to happen, given the interface is natural language, the LLM must work across languages to a very high level, which works against the idea that human language will adapt to it. To work across language to that level it must adapt to humans, not the other way around.
This is different to other technology which has come before - like post, or email - where a technical restriction in particular format/structure (eg postal or email address) was secondary to the main content (the message).
For LLMs to affect language you're basically talking about human-to-human communication adopting "prompt engineering" characteristics. I just don't see this happening on the scale you describe, human-to-human communication is wooly, imperfect, with large non-verbal elements, and while most people make do most of the time, we all broadly speaking suck at making points with perfect clarity and no misunderstanding.
For any LLM to be successful, it must be able to handle that, and being able to handle that dramactically reduces the likelihood of affecting change, because if change is required it won't be successful.
It's basically a tautology, is why it's such a difficult thing, and why our current generation of models are supported mainly through hype and fomo.
Lastly, the closest example to a highly structured prompt that currently exists are programming languages. These are used by millions of people every day, and still developers do not talk to each other via their prefered language's syntax of choice.
Regardless of whether or not something replaces LLMs in the future, the data and processing that's gone into that data, will likely be used along with the lessons were learning now. I think they're a solid investment from any angle.
I'm a big proponent of research for the sake of research, so I agree that lessons will be learnt.
But to go back to Ops original question, how will LLMs affect spoken language, they won't.
Yes. I'm also very happy to be proven wrong in the years to come.
If you ask an LLM a question, and it gives you a response that indicates it has understood your question correctly, and you are able to understand its response that far, then the LLM has done it's job, regardless of if the answer is correct
I don't want to get too philosophical here, but you cannot detach understanding / comprehension from the accuracy of the reply, given how LLMs work.
An LLM, through its training data, establishes what an answer looks like based on similarity to what it's been taught.
I'm simplifying here, but it's like an actor in a medical drama. The actor is given a script that they repeat, that doesn't mean they are a doctor. After a while the actor may be able to point out an inconsistency in the script because they remember that last time a character had X they needed Y. That doesn't mean they are right, or wrong, nor does it make them a doctor, but they sound like they are.
This is the fundamental problem with LLMs. They don't understand, and in generating replies they just repeat. It's a step forward on what came before, that's definitely true, but repetition is a dead end because it doesn't hold up to application or interrogation.
The human-machine interface part, of being able to process natural language requests and then handing off those requests to other systems, operating in different ways, is the most likely evolution of LLMs. But generating the output themselves is where it will fail.
It's to balance, you're looking at <1% of volume so it's a background note at most, probably optional really. I can't remember where I got the recommendation from, hah.
I've been baking with starter for years, I'll keep this super simple. As others have said it does not need to be complicated, bread is an ancient invention.
The most important thing is to have fun and feel free to expirement.
keep the starter in the fridge, I use a large jar with a screw top lid
use weight for all measurements, not volume. Get a pair of kitchen scales, they don't need to be super expensive
get a loaf tin, don't worry about dutch ovens and baskets at this stage, they are purely for aestetic and what we want is functional bread
if you need 150g of starter for a recipe, feed the starter with 75g flour, and 75g water, and give it a good stir (I use a chopstick for ease). Leave it on the side at room temp for about 6 hours, but overnight is fine. As long as it's spongy you'll be fine.
That's it.
The following is the loaf recipe I've used for years. It makes a 3lb / 1300g loaf, so adjust the amount depending on the size of the tin.
206g starter
615g flour
410g water
5g sugar
6g salt
10g apple cider vinegar
Mix starter, sugar, water, and half the flour together in a bowl, leave for at least 30 minutes (I usually do this overnight cos I'm lazy)
Mix in the remaining flour, salt, and vinegar
Knead for 3-5 minutes - the mixture will feel wet, it is, but as long as everything has been mixed in you're fine. Resist all urges to add extra flour.
Place in a large bowl and cover with a tea towel, leave for 2 hours / double in size
Pour a small amount of oil (like the size of a coin) on your worktop, and wipe it around with your hand to make a large rectangle, with the long side nearest you / "landscape"
Lightly oil your loaf tin
place dough in centre of rectangle, and shape the dough to be about the size of a letter / A4 paper, with the long side nearest you / "landscape"
imagine the dough has 3 equal sections. Take the left section and fold it on top of the middle section. Then take the right section and fold it on top of both so you have 3 "layers" in the middle of the rectangle
roll it over, so the bottom layer is now facing upwards / on top
place in to the loaf tin
put in a CLEAN, and lightly oiled plastic bag and leave to rise for 2 hours / doubled / tin is full
They are different examples. If you wanted a proper comparison it would be graffiting outside the Israeli embassy. That isn't antisemitic because it's literally the country you would be protesting.
The monarchy example is a protest being in a location where everyone there is definitely a monarchist. You're not going to have ardent republicans queuing to pay respects to some old dead woman, or see an old man in a fancy hat.
The Golders Green example is going to a British community, who practice a particular faith, and asserting that because of that faith they must support Israel, because that country has the same faith. That is what makes it antisemitic, saying that British people must support the actions of a different country just because of their faith.
If you live somewhere, and your neighbours coincidentally are British Jews, and you want to put a Free Palestine poster in your window, that's perfectly fine.
If you live somewhere, and you put the same poster in your window purely to antagonise your neighbour, then you're being a dick but it still probably isn't illegal in and of itself, but could over time be considered harassment.
If you life somewhere and you're campaigning in your community for a Free Palestine, and you put flyers through everyone's door, that's OK.
If you live somewhere, and post the same flyers only through the doors of people you know to be jewish, that's antisemitic, because you are presuming that just because a British person is Jewish, they support the actions of a different country.
If you don't live in that place, and you know it to be a predominately Jewish area, and go and spray paint Free Palestine on a wall in that area, you again are presuming that just because a British person is Jewish, they support the actions of a different country.
It's the presumption that just because your Jewish you support Israel that makes it antisemitic. In the exact same way that presuming that just because someone is a Muslim, they support Hamas. Or that they're Irish they support the IRA, etc.
Not to be that guy, but akkkkchtully these are two very different sentiments.
The point with "this too shall pass" is that good times, as well as bad times, pass.