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AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

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Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#31

Post by asdfman123 »

bomewish wrote: post #2

Doh. I went in expecting a really cool thesis — because the idea seems somehow intuitive, or at least really intriguing. But I have no clue what I read. Just totally odd and unconvincing. Greenland? Dialectal substrate? The idea is still super intriguing to me though!

While I understand what the paper is saying I'm not sure if what I read was written by someone who is smarter than me and naturally goes higher up the abstraction tree, or just wants to write really smart things.

Either way though I think there's a much simpler way to express what she's trying to say. Offloading thinking to AI is bad because it's less flexible and doesn't easily update its reasoning with new information.

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#32

Post by hn_acc1 »

jbethune wrote: post #19

This was a bit word-salad-y but I share the same basic concern. I think more I worry about the tendency toward greater and greater cognitive off-loading to LLMs. My sister told me a story the other day about how she caught her plumber using chatgpt on his phone to fix an issue with her bathroom. I just think it's good for humans to know how to do stuff.

Sure, but.. I've been coding for 40 years and I don't know everything. To me, a LOT depends on what the plumber asked chatgpt about. For example: building codes in that city, to figure out what his options are - like, is he allowed to just put in any old toilet, or is there a gpf restriction? What's the replacement part number for faucet XYZ's gasket? Those seem reasonable.

"how do I fix a clogged toilet?" would be bad..

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#33

Post by eaglelamp »

zozbot234 wrote: post #12

At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of…

You're misinterpreting the quote. Socrates is saying that being able to find a written quotation will replace fully understanding a concept. It's the difference between being able to quote the pythagorean theorem and understanding it well enough to prove it. That's why Socrates says that those who rely on reading will be "hard to get along with" - they will be pedantic without being able to discuss concepts freely.

Likewise with AI the appearance of reasoning without the substance could lead to boring exchanges of plausible slop rather than meaningful discourse.

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#34

Post by askonomm »

dfee wrote: post #23
jbethune wrote: post #19

This was a bit word-salad-y but I share the same basic concern. I think more I worry about the tendency toward greater and greater cognitive off-loading to LLMs. My sister told me a story the other day about how she caught her plumber using chatgpt on his phone to fix an issue with her bathroom. I just think it's good for humans to know how to do stuff.

your sister offloaded to her plumber. her plumber offloaded to chatgpt. "i just think it's good for humans to know how to do stuff." are we talking about your sister or her plumber?

So you are saying that a plumber does not in fact need to know how to be a plumber?

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#35

Post by partyficial »

palmotea wrote: post #25
zozbot234 wrote: post #12

At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of…

Oh no, not that tired thing again. I suppose your point is: people once were critical of the technology of writing, so all criticism of the technology-at-hand is illegitimate. You don't actually make a point, so one has to assume. Some points: 1. Technological inventions are not repetitions of the same phenomenon. Each invention is its own unique event, you cannot generalize the experience with previous inventions to…

he(zozbot234) could also be agreeing with OP, not disagreeing.

I don't remember phone numbers anymore. If I were to lose my phone, or the cloud, I'm SOL re-adding everyone.

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#36

Post by user3939382 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #12

At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of…

This is actually a great criticism. Post Enlightenment we’ve come to worship the written word as a source of truth. It’s not. Thoughts, wisdom, understanding, exist primarily (and by necessity primarily) as a continuous structure in our minds. By writing, we distill and collapse this rich continuous structure into a discrete 2D slice. It’s portable which has many benefits but we tend to forget that this written word we worship in academia is a low fidelity copy created out of necessity, not because it’s optimal. In fact, much is lost this way. The hazard is that we often end up testing for mastery of this low fidelity discretization rather than the knowledge structure it shadows.

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#37

Post by dfee »

jessetemp wrote: post #26
dfee wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your sister offloaded to her plumber. her plumber offloaded to chatgpt. "i just think it's good for humans to know how to do stuff." are we talking about your sister or her plumber?

The plumber obviously. Not everyone needs to know how to be a plumber, but a plumber should know how to be a plumber

the question was rhetorical. but, since you responded – do you think that there are limits to who can or should use ai? if the plumber's use of ChatGPT improved outcomes, isn't that preferable?

some knowledge is likely "cached" in the plumber. maybe he doesn't ask the same question twice. i'm sympathetic to the plumber, but i think your concerns of erosion of knowledge or skill are worth pushing on further.

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#38

Post by theappsecguy »

hn_acc1 wrote: post #32
jbethune wrote: post #19

This was a bit word-salad-y but I share the same basic concern. I think more I worry about the tendency toward greater and greater cognitive off-loading to LLMs. My sister told me a story the other day about how she caught her plumber using chatgpt on his phone to fix an issue with her bathroom. I just think it's good for humans to know how to do stuff.

Sure, but.. I've been coding for 40 years and I don't know everything. To me, a LOT depends on what the plumber asked chatgpt about. For example: building codes in that city, to figure out what his options are - like, is he allowed to just put in any old toilet, or is there a gpf restriction? What's the replacement part number for faucet XYZ's gasket? Those seem reasonable. "how do I fix a clogged toilet?" would be b…

[dead]

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#39

Post by danielbln »

jessetemp wrote: post #26
dfee wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your sister offloaded to her plumber. her plumber offloaded to chatgpt. "i just think it's good for humans to know how to do stuff." are we talking about your sister or her plumber?

The plumber obviously. Not everyone needs to know how to be a plumber, but a plumber should know how to be a plumber

Im a software engineer and know how to be a software engineer, yet I find LLMs quite helpful. Why should a plumber be any different.
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