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AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

koshyjohn.com

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Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#531

Post by chromacity »

gjuggler wrote: post #406

I was surprised not to see any discussion on whether the author used AI to help write this post. As many people say, writing is thinking. I started getting that "I'm reading another AI-written blog post" feeling around 1/3 of the way through, but I don't consider myself super calibrated on this. Pangram seems pretty confident it's AI ( https://www.pangram.com/history/e9f6eb77-86f9-46d0-a6c1-e57c... ). But I know thes…

> I was surprised not to see any discussion on whether the author used AI to help write this post.

It is definitely AI-written, far beyond "AI assisted". This is a shower thought turned into a needlessly long machine-generated essay that doesn't say anything a chatbot wouldn't say if you said "hey ChatGPT, write me a thought-provoking essay on for HN".

I made a comment about it, along with several other folks, but the thing is... we get these AI-written "AI is bad" / "AI is great" articles multiple times a day. Debating them doesn't scale, but neither does complaining about them, and especially not complaining in a thoughtful way. Most people on HN are content to argue with a machine.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#533

Post by tombert »

manoDev wrote: post #521

"Social media should bring people together instead of being used to set them apart." "Economy should improve allocation of resources universally, instead of allowing a handful to hold what many are lacking." And so on... Society has advanced in technology but didn't progress the same way in philosophy.

I'm no fan of social media and I'm not even a big fan of capitalism, but isn't this kind of reductive? You can always point out bad things and try and extrapolate that outward.

We live in a time with an extremely low murder rate (historically speaking), a very high literacy rate, the ability to keep in touch with family members across the world extremely cheaply, eradication or near-eradication of lots of diseases. If I were to extrapolate that outward then I could do the same kind of logic to talk about how great everything is.

I guess I just find this kind of doomerism to be extremely tempting but ultimately just reductive.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#534

Post by [deleted] »

mpalmer wrote: post #499
pgwhalen wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why? I'm getting better at detecting some kinds of AI writing, but I constantly seem comments like this on HN for things I'm much less suspicious of, and I want to understand why people make them.

See my comment in this thread for what jumped out the most to me.

[deleted]

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#535

Post by pgwhalen »

mpalmer wrote: post #526
pgwhalen wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you link to it? Your comment history does not show such a comment.

"Taking you at your word..."

Oh I'm sorry, I didn't see you were different than the commenter I was responding to.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#536

Post by lauren_knows »

manoDev wrote: post #521

"Social media should bring people together instead of being used to set them apart." "Economy should improve allocation of resources universally, instead of allowing a handful to hold what many are lacking." And so on... Society has advanced in technology but didn't progress the same way in philosophy.

We're still human, and have human tendencies. I feel like the tools are out there for us to be great, but they certainly gently push us toward being degenerates :/

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#537

Post by NoSalt »

Personally, I see AI as "nothing more" than the computer aboard the Enterprise. A vast storehouse of information, and the ability to quickly access such information, and form a workable solution from that information. However, not the end-all be-all that so many people see it as. Just like Geordi says, using your gut is just as important, if not more so, that having access to the "correct answer".

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#538

Post by brcmthrowaway »

NoSalt wrote: post #537

Personally, I see AI as "nothing more" than the computer aboard the Enterprise. A vast storehouse of information, and the ability to quickly access such information, and form a workable solution from that information. However, not the end-all be-all that so many people see it as. Just like Geordi says, using your gut is just as important, if not more so, that having access to the "correct answer".

The managerial class doesn't think that way.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#539

Post by ori_b »

nutjob2 wrote: post #529
ori_b wrote: post #519

> and spend more time on the parts of the job that actually matter i.e. framing problems, making tradeoffs, spotting risks, creating clarity, and producing original insight. What makes you think AI won't do those parts of the job? Either AI stops improving, or it will replace thinking.

What makes you think it will? Your dichotomy is a false one. We don't even know what 'thinking' is so the idea that it'll create it just by scaling does not follow. What is much more likely is that we're on the wrong path. That's been the case for more than half a century.

Because it's already doing an OK job. Like it was coding 2 years back.

I'm not optimistic enough to say that it'll never get better.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#540

Post by benrutter »

manoDev wrote: post #521

"Social media should bring people together instead of being used to set them apart." "Economy should improve allocation of resources universally, instead of allowing a handful to hold what many are lacking." And so on... Society has advanced in technology but didn't progress the same way in philosophy.

> Economy should improve allocation of resources universally, instead of allowing a handful to hold what many are lacking

I 100% take your point here, but it's worth saying the modern economy has improved resource access in a lot of ways. It's also worth saying that wealth distribution looks very different between countries[0].

None of this goes against what you've said really, but I think it's important to point out that there our multiple societies, with different values. We can shape and change the ones we're in.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_we...

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