Pattern matching: from chimp data to LLM minions

Part of what initially drove my career was the way my brain can handle (and frankly enjoy) monotonously scanning through data or code and picking out patterns.

I’m not a read-the-documentation-start-to-finish kind of gal. I like to tinker. Documentation points me in the right direction and saves me when the action I want isn’t intuitive, but I’m not above banging on a system until I understand what makes it tick.

Which propelled my career as it evolved through a series of sophisticated, niche technologies (and a world of data-bases / files) that often didn’t come with a robust manual, or any at all:

🐵 Storing behavioral data to track chimpanzee behavior down to which hand or foot they used. (I know that's not a chimp, they don't have a chimp emoji. Gorilla, orangutan, yes. But the living species most closely related to us? No 😠)

🔵 A DotCom client asking for a projected portrait display on glass so you could see a scrolling LED sign behind it. Fuck it, let’s get that working in your lobby four months before the bubble pops and it's smashed to pieces to make way for a Swiss insurance company (true story).

And as I learned how to wield that skill... while simultaneously reading dystopic sci-fis that featured actual AI, not this LLM lizard-brain BS... I kept thinking the same thing: Where is the AI to take over the monotonous part of this for me?

And that day has arrived. Which is why you’ll see a bit of a split in my posts, from scoffing at Hype Lords to lauding my new little LLM minions. Just because they didn’t catch me with the hype (thanks, dystopic sci-fis!) doesn’t mean I didn’t see the kernel of truth beneath it. Because it’s the same skill I recognized in myself long ago — the very same skill that provides the foundation of actionable knowledge for thinking beings: pattern matching.