Why Talking to LLMs Has Improved My Thinking

Published in February 2026

Why Talking to LLMs Has Improved My Thinking by Philip O'Toole, creator of rqlite (via HN).

Philip's thesis: LLMs help articulate tacit knowledge, the understanding we have but can't easily put into words. This isn't learning new things, it's recognition: mapping latent structure to language.

As programmers and developers, we build up a lot of understanding that never quite becomes explicit.This is not a failure. It is how experience operates. The brain compresses experience into patterns that are efficient for action, not for speech. Those patterns are real, but they are not stored in sentences.

This resonates. I already have the knowledge to solve most problems I encounter, I just can't always articulate the path. The LLM helps me find the words for what I already know.

The problem is that reflection, planning, and teaching all require language. If you cannot express an idea, you cannot easily inspect it or improve it.

Once an idea is written down, it becomes easier to work with. Vague intuitions turn into named distinctions. Implicit assumptions become visible. At that point you can test them, negate them, or refine them.

The other thing I've noticed: even when the LLM gets it wrong, the reaction from being wrong helps distill the idea. You read its response and think "no, that's not quite it"—and suddenly you know what it actually is.

This is not new. Writing has always done this for me. What is different is the speed.

Exactly. Writing has always been my tool for thinking, but it's slow. With an LLM, the loop between "I vaguely know this" and "now I can express it clearly" tightens dramatically.

It is improving the interface between my thinking and language. Since reasoning depends heavily on what one can represent explicitly, that improvement can feel like a real increase in clarity.

I hadn't paid attention to this framing before—the LLM as an interface improvement, not a knowledge source.

From the HN discussion, firefoxd pushes back:

Not to dismiss other people's experience, but thinking improves thinking. People tend to forget that you can ask yourself questions and try to answer them. There is such thing as recursive thinking where you end up with a new thought you didn't have before you started. Don't dismiss this superpower you have in your own head.

And john01dav adds:

In my experience LLMs offer two advantages over private thinking:1. They have access to a vast array of extremely well indexed knowledge and can tell me about things that I'd never have found before.1. They are able to respond instantly and engagingly, while working on any topic, which helps fight fatigue, at least for me.

I think the combination is a killer—it helps me introspect my thoughts and offers extra knowledge. That's why writing books or articles is so much easier now.

Writing isn't about finding the words. It's about the journey and exploration and asking questions. Writing becomes documenting and curating the journey.

For the reader: they can also get this info from the docs or an LLM, but it's the journey that's missing.

firefoxd's point about "recursive thinking" is valid but misses something: the LLM provides resistance.

Thinking alone can loop. An external response, even an imperfect one, creates friction that forces your thoughts into new shapes.

It's the same reason rubber ducking works in software development. The solution is usually already inside you. You just need to externalise it. The rubber duck doesn't solve your problem; the act of explaining does. LLMs take this further: they're a rubber duck that talks back, occasionally pushes you in a new direction, and never gets tired of listening.