Live data from Hacker News

The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking [pdf]

microsoft.com

31–40 of 109 posts

Re: The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking [pdf]

#31

Review code or waste time thinking and coding? I guess that's the question.

I can either spent 20 minutes arguing with an LLM to get something that maybe does most of what I want, or spend those 25 minutes to get something n that does exactly what I want.

I wouldn’t call those 5 minutes times wasted

Re: The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking [pdf]

#33

People are worried AI is making us dumber. You hear it all the time. GPS wrecked our sense of direction. Spellcheck killed spelling. Now it’s AI’s turn to supposedly rot our brains. It’s the same old story. New tool comes along, people freak out about what we’re “losing.” But they’re missing the point. It’s never about losing skills, it’s about shifting them. And usually, the shift is upwards. Take GPS. Yeah, okay, m…

For GPS:

https://www.npr.org/2011/07/26/137646147/the-gps-a-fatally-m...

Re: The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking [pdf]

#35
Interesting, in my experience LLMs hallucinate so much on stuffs I know about that I instinctively challenge most of their assumptions and outputs, and found out that this kind of dialectic exchange bring the most out of the "relationship" so to speak, co creating something greater than the isolation of us two.

Relevant 2018 essay by Nicky Case «How To Become A Centaur»: https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/issue3-case/release/6

Re: The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking [pdf]

#37
post #19

If a study comes out which demonstrates to high confidence that some extremely horrible outcome is certain with this technology, would any changes be made? Would we tell OpenAI to close shop? I don't think, with the way our society and politics is set up, we would be able to deal with this. There's too much money, ego, and general inertia at play to change course.

Climate change is already a pretty good precedent on this

That's too broad though, because there been specific issues we've (humanity) managed to come together to fix, like the "ozone hole" stuff being "solved" with regulations, protocols and public policy, while there are other issues we haven't quite been able to do the same with, all under the umbrella of "climate change".

Re: The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking [pdf]

#38
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI can program, but not engineer. Even then, you eventually reach a point in the project where it is too complex for AI to even do snippets; especially if you are pioneering something new that has never been done before. A sprinter is unlikely to win a marathon, and that is what using AI to program is like. By the time you have to take over, you have a huge learning curve ahead of you as you can lean on the AI less a…

> AI can program, but not engineer. I feel like that's what the OP said. People can focus on the engineering part and not memorizing syntax or function names. Too often I see people thinking in very binary terms, and we see it here again. AI does everything or nothing. I just keep thinking it'll be in between and people who are good at leveraging every tool at their disposal will reap the largest benefits.

You don't need AI if that's all you're using it for. In fact, IDEs have been doing a fine job at that for years.

It feels right now, that much of the time, AI is a solution looking for a problem to solve.

I find it more useful to treat AI like an easier to search stack overflow. You can ask it to go find you an answer, and then elaborate when it's not the right one.

Re: The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking [pdf]

#39

If a study comes out which demonstrates to high confidence that some extremely horrible outcome is certain with this technology, would any changes be made? Would we tell OpenAI to close shop? I don't think, with the way our society and politics is set up, we would be able to deal with this. There's too much money, ego, and general inertia at play to change course.

If a study comes out, no. But I do not think the trajectory of LLMs is as determined as you may think
Post reply on HN