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AI may be making us think and write more alike

dornsife.usc.edu

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Re: AI may be making us think and write more alike

#171

Post by ge96 »

SecretDreams wrote: post #33
misterflibble wrote: post #2

Subtly? I beg to differ. My team leader only communicates to me using his LLM and so his "thoughts" are not his own!

I would be looking for another job. I'm fine with using LLMs as coding tools. But I find it deeply offensive when someone is very explicitly using them to communicate with me. Communication is such a deeply human experience. It lets people feel each other out, and learn things beyond just the words being said. To have that filtered out by an LLM is just disgraceful.

I was talking to managers and they were talking about how they'd use AI to write reviews about their employees to which I said I would not like a non-genuine review/not personal.

Their rational is coming off more professional

Re: AI may be making us think and write more alike

#172

Post by bitwize »

azan_ wrote: post #165
danielbln wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were no "dark ages", that's the same common wisdom blunder like "in the middle ages everybody was dressed in drab grey clothing, ate gruel and walked through mountains of poop everywhere". It was a time of transition away from the slave powered empire to decentralized kingdoms and ultimately the Europe of today. It was by no means a time of standstill.

Yes, Europe did not have dark ages, it only had period of population decline, of less emissions, less building, less inventions, less records and severed trade networks.

Population decline? Less emissions? Haven't we reached consensus that those would be welcome today? Is it time for a pro-dark-age movement?

Re: AI may be making us think and write more alike

#173

Post by 2dfdxf »

beej71 wrote: post #139

LLMs have felt to me like they excel in one particular skill (being able to make connections across vast amounts of knowledge) and are basically average, otherwise. If I'm below average at something (painting, say) the results astound me. But if I'm above average (programming, writing (I like to think)), I'm generally underwhelmed by the results. I used Claude a lot for planning my current fun project. Good rubber du…

Agreed. The test I run is "Can it simplify a concept I know in a matter of sentences/words, better than I can?" on a subject area that requires a lot of nuance.

And to my disappointment, the LLMs never come close. They dump paragraphs upon paragraphs. I actually want to see the LLMs surprise me. But they disappoint me for what Im specifically looking for.

Re: AI may be making us think and write more alike

#174

Post by mountainb »

azan_ wrote: post #162
hirako2000 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reached the same conclusion. It also made me realised how most technologies degraded our lives. Before the TV people would go to the theatre. It's becoming hard to find a theatre these days. Artificial light is convenient, it made billion or people develop sleep disorder and we can't see stars at at night. Mass food production supposedly nourished more people: veggies today have 20% the minerals content they had 70…

> Mass food production supposedly nourished more people: veggies today have 20% the minerals content they had 70y ago..the list go on and on. I suggest you should have a look at malnutrition rates 100 years ago vs now. Without mass food production we would not be able to sustain even 50% of current population.

Why would that be bad? Why is more better?

Re: AI may be making us think and write more alike

#177

Post by MengerSponge »

beej71 wrote: post #139

LLMs have felt to me like they excel in one particular skill (being able to make connections across vast amounts of knowledge) and are basically average, otherwise. If I'm below average at something (painting, say) the results astound me. But if I'm above average (programming, writing (I like to think)), I'm generally underwhelmed by the results. I used Claude a lot for planning my current fun project. Good rubber du…

It's just Gell-Mann amnesia.

Re: AI may be making us think and write more alike

#179

Post by TeMPOraL »

shimman wrote: post #135
TeMPOraL wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth questioning the underlying assumptions. It's humans - all humans - that benefit from LLMs. I see a lot of people having this attitude, but I can't help but see it as really being about seeking credit instead of generosity, and/or Dog in the Manger mindset.

Humans aren't benefiting from LLMs, only a few individuals are. Let's stop with the fake platitudes and realize that unless this technology isn't completely open sourced from top to bottom, it's a complete farce to think humans are going to benefit and not just the rich getting richer.

You must not be serious. Every single person using LLMs, whether paid or free tiers or open models, whether using them for chat or as part of some kind of data pipeline - so possibly without even knowing they're using them - benefits.

"Few individuals" get money mostly for providing LLMs as a service. As far as tech businesses go, this is refreshingly straightforward, literally just charging money for providing some useful service to people. Few tech companies have anything close to a honest business model like this.

Re: AI may be making us think and write more alike

#180

Post by misterflibble »

lamasery wrote: post #110
SecretDreams wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be looking for another job. I'm fine with using LLMs as coding tools. But I find it deeply offensive when someone is very explicitly using them to communicate with me. Communication is such a deeply human experience. It lets people feel each other out, and learn things beyond just the words being said. To have that filtered out by an LLM is just disgraceful.

I think you're gonna struggle to find companies that aren't infested with this kind of thing. Observing the effect of LLMs on the "business side" of things, I'm increasingly thinking of these as a kind of infection against which the MBA set and their acolytes have no immune response, and I think it's going to eat a large proportion of the benefit of LLMs to most businesses (possibly overwhelming it and actually harmi…

I reckon you've hit the nail on the head and if you haven't done already, you should write your thoughts into a blog post. It is great to read someone's ponderings about the state of the industry and corporate uptake of LLMs
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