<small>March 1, 2026</small> One of the most interesting things about [[LLMs]] is that they are translators. I'm not talking about like, English to Japanese or something. I think what makes them really special is the way that they can translate information between entirely different contexts. Every single time I use an [[LLMs|LLM]], this specific attribute, blows my fucking mind. For example, let's say a specific scene flashed into your mind. Something specific that made you feel something, for whatever reason. You could make notes on every aspect of what you saw in your mind, and then pass those notes into an LLM, and ask it how it would take those notes and translate it into something you could communicate to a cinematographer about how to technically execute that scene. It will outline all of the technical setups, its thoughts on how to light it, the camera angles, all of the specific shots. Isn't that fucking absurd? And this matters, a lot. Because you *know* your vision. You *know* what you saw in your head, and then when the [[LLMs|LLM]] translates it into technical language it teaches you how that world works. It teaches you how to take something in your mind and translate it into the domain of [[filmmaking|cinematography]]. It makes everything less intimidating. This fundamentally changes how you can collaborate and communicate with other people. Now before you even meet a cinematographer about your concept, on some level you have already seen how the thing you are imagining could be translated into something real through their perspective. Even if it's not totally correct, the fact that there's already been some translation changes the nature of the collaboration. It's very different than showing up with notes on a glimpses from your mind, describing them to a cinematographer and expecting them to figure out how that should be translated technically. It's much, faster. This translation works in every direction and applies to every discipline. It allows someone non-technical to learn from the perspective of a software engineer. If someone imagined a concept for a particular structure, they could use an [[LLMs|LLM]] to imagine how that structure might processed through the perspective of an engineer or an industrial designer. I just can't believe this is fucking real. And it can go both ways. The [[LLMs|LLM]] can take something technical and explain it in a way that is non-technical, making the concept more accessible. It can work across ages. Taking something complex, and translating it to a 5 year old. Isn't that surreal man? And I'm not saying you should just accept every translation from an [[LLMs|LLM]]. I'm not saying if you describe a scene and it translates it into a technical document for a cinematographer, that you should just send that shit off, no, not at all. What I'm saying is that, observing a continual back and forth translation between your context and some other context can help you learn new things faster. You do not [[Don't delegate understanding|delegate your understanding]] to the [[LLMs|LLM]]. You use its ability to translate things to enhance your own understanding of things. How *does* this thing that flashed into your mind just now get translated into something real? Take what the [[LLMs|LLM]] tells you and test it. Try it out. Is it right? It might be wrong, but at least you are not starting from scratch. At least you have something to structure your unstructured thoughts and to see what it looks like. This is powerful. We value great teachers so much because of how they can translate things for us. How they can take something scary and difficult and make it approachable and less intimidating. These people change lives. They can fundamentally alter the trajectory of what someone can do. And here we have this new technology that can do that pretty well, and all the time. It's really exciting man. The way humans live and learn in the future will be so different than the way I came up. It's cool how nothing is stagnant. Especially humanity, I love that we are always on this continuum, and what humans can do and be is always expanding. Related: [[On Creative Direction]], [[Using LLMs for Cognitive Enhancement in the West End of Toronto]], [[Context Architecture]]