AI is a floor raiser, not a ceiling raiser

Hmm I don't feel like this should be taken as a tenet of AI. I feel a more relevant kernel would be less black and white.

Also I think what you're saying is a direct contradiction of the parent. Below average people can now get average results; in other words: The LLM will boost your capabilities (at least if you're already 'less' capable than average). This is a huge benefit if you are in that camp.

But for other cases too, all you need to know is where your knowledge ends, and that you can't just blindly accept what the AI responds with. In fact, I find LLMs are often most useful precisely when you don’t know the answer. When you’re trying to fill in conceptual gaps and explore an idea.

Even say during code generation, where you might not fully grasp what’s produced, you can treat the model like pair programming and ask it follow-up questions and dig into what each part does. They're very good at converting "nebulous concept description" into "legitimate standard keyword" so that you can go and find out about said concept that you're unfamiliar with.

Realistically the only time I feel I know more than the LLM is when I am working on something that I am explicitly an expert in, and in which case often find that LLMs provide nuance lacking suggestions that don’t always add much. It takes a lot more filling in context in these situations for it to be beneficial (but still can be).

Take a random example of nifty bit of engineering: The powerline ethernet adapter. A curious person might encounter these and wonder how they work. I don't believe an understanding of this technology is very obvious to a layman. Start asking questions and you very quickly come to understand how it embeds bits in the very same signal that transmits power through your house without any interference between the two "types" of signal. It adds data to high frequencies on one end, and filters out the regular power transmitting frequencies at the other end so that the signal can be converted back into bits for use in the ethernet cable (for a super brief summary). But if want to really drill into each and every engineering concept, all I need to do is continue the conversation.

I personally find this loop to be unlike anything I've experienced as far as getting immediate access to an understanding and supplementary material for the exact thing Im wondering about.

Wouldn't that be an exloper?

Edit: Geometrically, I agree an extraloper could run on secants (or radii) but they're not allowed to strike a chord.

But getting back to generative text, I feel that "tangent" is more appropriate ;-)

Yup. As a retired mathematician who craves the productivity of an obsessed 28 year old, I've been all in on AI in 2025. I'm now on Claude's $200/month Max plan in order to use Claude Code Opus 4 without restraint. I still hit limits, usually when I run parallel sessions to review a 57 file legacy code base.

For a time I refused to talk with anybody or read anything about AI, because it was all noise that didn't match my hard-earned experience. Recently HN has included some fascinating takes. This isn't one.

I have the opinion that neurodivergents are more successful using AI. This is so easily dismissed as hollow blather, but I have a precise theory backing this opinion.

AI is a giant association engine. Linear encoding (the "King - Man + Woman = Queen" thing) is linear algebra. I taught linear algebra for decades.

As I explained to my optometrist today, if you're trying to balance a plate (define a hyperplane) with three fingers, it works better if your fingers are farther apart.

My whole life people have rolled their eyes when I categorize a situation using analogies that are too far flung for their tolerances.

Now I spend most of my time coding with AI, and it responds very well to my "fingers farther apart" far reaching analogies for what I'm trying to focus on. It's an association engine based on linear algebra, and I have an astounding knack for describing subspaces.

AI is raising the ceiling, not the floor.

Of course AI increases inequality. It's automated ladder pulling technology.

To become good at something you have to work through the lower rungs and acquire skill. AI does all those lower level jobs, puts the people who need those jobs for experience on the street, and robs us of future experts.

The people who benefit the most are those who are already up on top of the ladder investing billions to make the ladder raise faster and faster.

I guess the AI glazing has infiltrated everywhere