It's time to start learning advanced topics again and I thought it'd be at least interesting to take advantage of LLM's to help me learn better or faster.

I've read here that some of you are using "socratic skills" where you give the LLM some content and then you get a series of questions in order to learn but I don't think it's the only approach to this.

I'll start tackling the "Attention is all you need" paper and then I want to go deeper.

What's your approach?

AI, when used in an organized and structured way, is excellent for learning a language. For example:

1. Ask AI for the 10 most commonly used verbs in ordinary daily speech in language X.

2. Prompt AI: generate 4 short sentences for each of the 10 verbs at the A1 (beginner) level. Provide the sentences in .csv format compatible with the Anki flash card program.

3. Import .csv into Anki. Study your 40 cards.

As you advance you can do much more like having conversations with AI avatars, transcribing videos, translating text, generating audio clips, and so on.

Dr Taylor Jones, a PhD linguist, goes into greater detail here: https://youtu.be/xQXiSGDXknA?

I absolutely don't learn content from AI. LLMs still are at the point where they sound plausible to non-experts, but are just wrong about things you know well. So if you feel you are learning successfully with an LLM teacher, guess which side of that line you are on?

That being said, they absolutely can spin out a topic list and help you find gaps in your knowledge in order to create a self-study plan. As a over-engineered librarian, they are terrific.

I had Claude research and synthesize as much as it could from published curriculums and then design its own undergrad Philosophy degree. Then I asked it to split it into lessons, and I am consuming these lessons, delivered dialogically, at the rate of about 1 a week at the moment. It's fun, it's engaging, and I really feel like I am learning and making progress. Could all be an illusion.

I told my system prompt to randomly inject contextually appropriate words and idioms of languages i want to learn into its responses.

AI is effective when combined with traditional approaches. I usually ask users to provide existing trusted educational resources with user reviews, create a roadmap for learning skills, and then provide examples for specific cases. Even when I am taking a course on learning portal, I often ask AI about alternatives

I often produce have LLMs extract the text from a book scan and then translate it into English or some other language I know. Then I load it into my interlinear reader for side-by-side reading. Convenient when you are starting out with a language

I’ve had claude code create a practice project for me to learn SQL. I had it create 12 projects of graded difficulty with automated tests. It was super helpful. I had to revise the lessons as I was completing them, but overall it worked fantastically.

Googling.

Watching Youtube.

Same as before.