Simon Willison: “I like to think of LLMs as a calculator for words.”

My oldest is in fifth grade.

We moved over the summer, so she just started at a new school. The new school is less challenging than the old school. In math she’s repeating a lot of what she did last year. Right now that’s double digit multiplication and division.

I’m comfortable with math. I want my daughters to be comfortable with math. I want her to go to a school that’s challenging, and pushes her to develop fluency. But if there’s a year of math to repeat, it’s this one.

She’s getting an extra year in doing the bits of math that you actually use in real life. And with that extra year, she’s gaining confidence. She’s learning different strategies and leaning on the ones that work best for her. She’s doing some stuff in her head.

It’s becoming fun. She’s getting good at it.

Double digit multiplication and division is hard. But really useful.

Back when I was a kid, we’d say things like, “why do we need to learn this? why can’t we just use a calculator?”

And the teacher would say something like, “you won’t always have a calculator on you.”

Well, now we do always have a calculator on us. And guess what, it’s still quite helpful to be comfortable with mental multiplication.