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Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?

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Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?

#271

Post by ryandvm »

boothby wrote: post #268
ryandvm wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, and you're not wrong, but it sounds like you're filtering out most of the shit that humanity is producing and then lecturing folks that say LLMs are smarter than most people. It's kind of like you hang out in a Buddhist monastery saying, "I don't know what you guys are talking about - people are so peace-loving!"

No, I'm interacting with people in person. I'd debate your claim that "most of the shit that humanity is producing" is internet-mediated, but your choice of noun renders that rather moot. Stop ingesting shit. There's a whole world out there.

I think we both agree that I need to spend less time in intellectual ghettos.

Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?

#272

Post by [deleted] »

beej71 wrote: post #221
slibhb wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that you don't like reading (which is fine). Some people enjoy reading words strung together in a certain way. The value comes from the simple relationship between the text and the reader, not on some kind of social connection.

It seems to be that you don't appreciate the relationship between the author and the reader and the author and the text, which is fine, but is a bit tragic. Not that I doubt that one day people will simply gather around the AI infinite story creation bot. They just won't know what they're missing. :(

[deleted]

Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?

#273

Post by gretch »

pibaker wrote: post #249
allthetime wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is easier than ever to learn difficult concepts. It is also easier than ever to produce things that used to require understanding of those concepts without them. Discipline and drive to use these powerful new tools patiently and with purpose is what is required.

Do we actually have any measurements of if AI helps you learn something better? Because it is one thing to feel like you have learned something and another thing to have actually learned it well enough to put it in use. There are so many YouTube tutorials on all kinds of subject that will make you feel like an expert in the field after watching, and then you start doing the thing they have supposedly taught you and y…

> Do we actually have any measurements of if AI helps you learn something better?

To me this is intuitively true based on anecdata. 2 examples

1) learning spanish - when I hear or read a phrase I don't know, I type it into the LLM and I learn a new word/phrase. Sure, I could have cracked open a spanish language dictionary, but tbh, I wasn't going to do that. Not to mention that dictionaries are translating word by word and not phrase by phrase.

2) growing vegetables in the garden. I literally watched YT tutorials and did what they did, and now I have vegetables that I didn't before. Yes, I could have probably could have gotten this from a botany book, but once again, I probably was not going to do this. I also was trouble shooting a lot in gemini

Here are the problems I traversed: - How much water should I give these per day? what's the watering schedule? - how much sun vs shade? - when do I move seedling to the ground outside? - Is trimming good? which parts and when do I trim? - [take a picture of weird growth] - Is this a disease on the plant? Or part of the plant naturally?

Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?

#274

Post by obscurette »

zerobees wrote: post #40

I don't know if this is a good framing. "Too much" is subjective, and every heavy AI user will assert that they're just unlocking their potential, that calculators didn't make us dumber, etc. But to latch onto the calculator argument: if you outsource adding numbers to a calculator, you're still you. On the flip side, if you use an LLM do most of your thinking, what's left? We have people here who use LLMs to raise t…

> calculators didn't make us dumber

I think that most of people misunderstand what calculator changed. Calculator didn't replace people doing math, calculator replaced mathematical tables, slide rulers and other already existing devices.

And regarding making people dumber ... Math teachers who saw this change said that there was a clear shift – students started to think less critically. With slide rulers and tables you had to think about answers – significant figures etc – with calculators you don't.

Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?

#275

Post by SamPatt »

chowells wrote: post #241
paytonjjones wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I never considered much is what happens when everyone else is using the Whispering Earring. You may be more free and independent, but you may also be unable to compete as everyone else easily gains wealth and success. Natural selection doesn't particularly care about freedom of consciousness. Bleak.

It is literally impossible for everyone to obtain wealth. Wealth isn't a number or physical circumstances. Wealth is having economic power over the people around you. Success is a little more nebulous, but when thought of as a relative of wealth it's similarly contextual. The danger isn't everyone but you getting wealthy. The danger is that wealth tends towards concentration. And it tends to concentrate around people…

No. The world has absolutely gotten wealthier over the last few centuries.

Wealth is obviously not zero sum. Humanity is far wealthier today than before the industrial revolution, and the trend is still towards increasing wealth.

Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?

#276

Post by drdaeman »

Izkata wrote: post #179
boothby wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a strange perspective to me. I wouldn't describe anybody I know in this way. Do you not engage in thoughtful conversation with the people you meet? Do you not know people who make art as a hobby? When techies propound such a dim view of humanity, I truly fear for our species. Nobody will shed a tear when your bodily resources are reallocated to paperclip production.

I'm guessing they're referring to the unexpected finding that most people don't have an "inner voice" - they don't think in words. It at least partially influenced the NPC meme.

> most people don’t have an “inner voice”

Isn’t that just an incorrect interpretation of the descriptive experience sampling tests? The frequency of having inner monologue varies, but I don’t think it was shown that many people have anendophasia.

Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?

#277

Post by jeromechoo »

snapetom wrote: post #251
jeromechoo wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow what a read! Thanks for sharing. Really helped me unpack why I’m so bothered by people who c/p AI answers verbatim.

I did a code review for a really, let's just say "challenging", co-worker a few years ago. There was one block of code that was really obtuse and I couldn't figure out why it was there and what it did. So I asked him. He sighed like he was taking responsibility for a grave sin and I should admire him for it, and said, "I don't know. I copied that from StackOverflow." I've felt that AI is just an amplification of what…

It certainly makes it all the easier for people predisposed to this quality of work.

Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?

#278

Post by zazuke »

I think so, thinking is like training a muscle, if you don't do it often, you don't get to do so. But it's not as black and white, because there are different use cases where it makes total sense to use, and when it doesn't. I collected opinions from writers and developers over the years and share why I'm pro writing text manually. https://www.ssp.sh/brain/will-ai-replace-humans/

Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?

#279

Post by murukesh_s »

zerobees wrote: post #40

I don't know if this is a good framing. "Too much" is subjective, and every heavy AI user will assert that they're just unlocking their potential, that calculators didn't make us dumber, etc. But to latch onto the calculator argument: if you outsource adding numbers to a calculator, you're still you. On the flip side, if you use an LLM do most of your thinking, what's left? We have people here who use LLMs to raise t…

it's the gut bacteria that is left. lol, that hunger, that emotion, that sense of intuition. Without emotions we are just a naturally evolved LLM.

Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?

#280

Post by [deleted] »

obscurette wrote: post #274
zerobees wrote: post #40

I don't know if this is a good framing. "Too much" is subjective, and every heavy AI user will assert that they're just unlocking their potential, that calculators didn't make us dumber, etc. But to latch onto the calculator argument: if you outsource adding numbers to a calculator, you're still you. On the flip side, if you use an LLM do most of your thinking, what's left? We have people here who use LLMs to raise t…

> calculators didn't make us dumber I think that most of people misunderstand what calculator changed. Calculator didn't replace people doing math, calculator replaced mathematical tables, slide rulers and other already existing devices. And regarding making people dumber ... Math teachers who saw this change said that there was a clear shift – students started to think less critically. With slide rulers and tables y…

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