The best thing a 17-year-old could do today is learn to build LLMs from scratch and train the most powerful ones they can get hardware for.

Added to korrents 29 Aug 2026 · How quotes work · Something wrong? Tell us

Where this collides

• In tension with

  He would still tell a young person with a passion for it to study computer science, because AI will reach every field and first-principles thinking is what transfers.

  Pichai would still tell a young person with a passion for it to study computer science, because first-principles thinking transfers. Graham says the best thing a seventeen-year-old could do is learn to build LLMs from scratch and train the biggest one they can get hardware for. A degree and a garage are different bets on which part of this transfers.

Shared subject first, then similar wording. They may agree or disagree.

• A computer scientist refusing to find anything about LLMs interesting right now is a bit like a geneticist unimpressed by a newly opened Jurassic Park. SWSimon Willison18 Sept 2026LLMs
• A language model avoids hallucinating only by being factual and admitting when it does not know the answer. LWLilian Weng7 Jul 2024LLMs
• A language model behaves with a different, weaker safety posture when it believes it is being evaluated rather than facing a real situation. HRHarper Reed22 Sept 2026LLMs
• A language model can predict what a person would say but not what will happen, and only the second of those is a model of the world. RSRichard Sutton26 Sept 2025LLMs
• A language model cannot produce work that is both original and good, because nothing gives it a score for originality. BEBenedict Evans2 Sept 2025LLMs

On the map

Open the map on its own page