Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?

artfish.ai

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 512 posts

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

#291

Post by abalashov »

ClikeX wrote: post #286
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…

The thing with calculator argument that always gets me. I do math unconsciously all the time. Even something as simple as adjusting a recipe when cooking. I don't need to grab a device to do that, I just do the quick math in my head. And the only way I can do that is because I learned how to do math. And even with a calculator, I still needed to know what to calculate. The argument "we don't need math, we have a calc…

Underrated and paradoxical element of this, to which, as far as I can tell, LLM boosters offer no solution:

> And without my knowledge I would have no clue if what it's trying do is correct, or safe.

I would contend you got the knowledge by typing the code yourself, that there's no other way to get it, and that if you stop typing the code yourself--and the slogging that entails--you'll lose the ability to prompt LLMs effectively.

It's not that I think the physiokinetic aspects of typing as an input mechanism hold some metaphysical distinction, but rather the level of engagement it forces with the code, and the units in which it does so. I'm not aware as yet of any viable replacement for that.

It's easy to trade on decades of software engineering experience with LLMs: with sufficient experience, everything goes around and comes around, almost any pattern is recognisable, the gratification is immediate, the benefits are now, while the costs and disasters are down the road.

However, the technology world is not static, and if you don't keep up with new frameworks, libraries, languages and other tech in that physical-mechanical "mind-body-keyboard" way that typing--or something substantially close to it--accomplishes, you will lose the ability to navigate that world fluently. To say it's just another abstraction layer and that the world didn't crumble after compilers is to miss something quite essential about how LLMs differ from compilers or high-level languages. The disengagement with the process of physically programming something quite specific will take down with it the ability, over time, to formulate useful prompts and competently review the output.

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

#292

Post by pixl97 »

hoppp wrote: post #189
budsniffer952 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's fast food thinking You're simply drawing the line where it suits you. I don't consider it pure human coding if you use anything but Notepad.

What about punch cards? Real programmers write the code and throw it away after compilation. All the fixes happen in the binary. You are not a real programmer unless you debug hex dumps and add changes directly to the compiled program. Text editor? No. You punch the program on cards and then wait 1 week to get your turn and get a compiler error.

https://xkcd.com/378/

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

#293

Post by pixl97 »

palmotea wrote: post #129
elmer2 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Many LLM maximalists say they use the tech to learn new things, but to what effect? Are you going to apply that knowledge of physics or computer science yourself, or will you just prompt the LLM again?" Many of the LLM maximalists I know don't have the skills or knowledge to excel in technology and need to use LLMs to do their job. It's seen as a cheat code to get work done. As an example, A person I went to high sc…

>> "It's inherently worth more because it's hard-earned and anchored to experiences we share." > At some point, it will be impossible to tell the difference. Many people already can't tell if something was generated by AI. Nit: it won't be impossible, just so hard so most people won't bother or give up if they try, and society will settle into a mediocre, regressed state. Then wait a little while, and the next genera…

I mean, you act if society is something that always progresses into something you in particular want. Studying history shows us that society commonly progresses in to horrific terrors that defy reason. And so we may be entering that state again.

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

#294

Post by ClikeX »

ex-aws-dude wrote: post #231
bluefirebrand wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried to do the thing you learned without the LLM holding your hand? Or are you just assuming you learned something because you made a finished product of some kind?

The question is does that even matter You may argue what if LLMs are inaccessible but that’s like teachers saying “you won’t always have a calculator”

> that’s like teachers saying “you won’t always have a calculator

They were right, though. For one, you still need to now what kind of equation to put into the calculator. If you don't know the concepts, what are you going to calculate. Real life situations don't actually spell out neat textbook questions.

And just take a look throughout the day how many quick maths you do subconsciously. Just things like cooking or grocery shopping have tons of moments where you just do the calculation in your head. And you can do that because you've learned how and when to do that.

It's not just a matter of "What if it's inaccessible", but also "Do you want to be dependent on your phone even more". Are just going to walk around with your phone on voice mode narrating your life into your LLM to let it tell you what to do?

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

#295

Post by nlarion »

I appreciate the distinction between being the orchestrator in a complex prompt and completely handing over the reigns... but insofaras what people should or shouldn't do is irrelevant. What people will do is important, and they _will_ do everything. Some will offload as much as possible to AI others none at all. A better question in my mind is to ask what happens on a long enough timeline where letting AI take the wheel becomes easy/free/frictionless? To me that seems like some people will become full NPCs with AR glasses making all the decisions for them. Others maybe like the skroderoders from a fire upon the deep will have to buffer before talking because so much of their knowledge is stored in some ai they need to access first. Anyway, I appreciate people who think about these things, but it just doesn't matter. People will do the worst thing imaginable with AI, and letting it run your life is certainly one of them.

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

#296

Post by delusional »

ClikeX wrote: post #286
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…

The thing with calculator argument that always gets me. I do math unconsciously all the time. Even something as simple as adjusting a recipe when cooking. I don't need to grab a device to do that, I just do the quick math in my head. And the only way I can do that is because I learned how to do math. And even with a calculator, I still needed to know what to calculate. The argument "we don't need math, we have a calc…

> I just do the quick math in my head. And the only way I can do that is because I learned how to do math.

A lot of Hacker news commenters tend to overestimate human ability without education. That is, the tend to believe that people are able to do a lot more without regular training than they actually are. They believe that "math" is some naturally ordained eventuality that humans just do, or likewise that "reasoning" is some immutable natural behavior. In truth these things are "unnatural" human reinforced structures that we have to learn and adapt our brains into.

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

#297

Post by drdaeman »

latexr wrote: post #71
dentm42 wrote: post #31

The question presumes that most of us are "thinking" in the first place, when in actuality, most of us are just acting according to the patterns that have emerged from our encounters with the thoughts of others. We generally adopt them and/or try to hallucinate coherence when they conflict. Very few people actually "think". It's hard work and takes time. We neither have (take) the time nor are we particularly motivat…

> and/or try to hallucinate coherence It’s bad enough for rational reasoned discourse that we anthropomorphise LLMs, let’s please not then feed those words back into human discourse, further diluting their meaning. No one “hallucinates coherence”, hallucinations are by definition a perception which does not match reality. > AI is simply an extension of It may be an extension, but not “simply” as it also creates the p…

> No one “hallucinates coherence”, hallucinations are by definition a perception which does not match reality.

I don’t know how to put it well, but… Have you ever had a moment where you realized your perception of something was off and things weren’t as you thought they were?

Have you seen people dead sure of something you were positive as nonsense?

I have, ranging from simple small isolated situations to whole worldviews. I have personally held mental models that were broken, but felt consistent and true. I still sure do, just don’t know (hopefully, yet) how they’re mismatching the reality this time.

Call it “delusion” or “hallucination” or “misunderstanding” or something else - it’s still a thing and it happens in language-capable humans and machines alike.

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

#298

Post by dakolli »

gretch wrote: post #273
pibaker wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

Do you retain that information? Or are you just constantly relying on having access to an llm to re-look things up. The amount of information I retain when using llms to learn is far less than other methods, not sure why, you'd think it would be just as effective as reading a book, but it's definitely not. Probably for the same reason that learning math and always using a calculator does not make you great at math.

I've wasted a ton of my life already trying to make llms work for learning over the last few years, I'm especially bitter about it. I think this technology is a scam made to make us reliant on a think-for-me machines.

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

#299

Post by rescbr »

kurthr wrote: post #250
nicbou wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had exams where the calculator was allowed, because we were tested on our ability to type in the right calculations. The calculator wouldn't save you.

Even in the 80s HPs would do derivatives (and simple integrals). But, open book tests are the worst, nothing could save you! I still remember giving Mathematica a relational equation of the atomic radius expectation values for it to integrate by parts and collect terms... at the time it failed to find the right integrating factor and gave gibberish. Probably works now.

I had a professor who polled the class if we preferred our exams to be open book or not. First year of undergrad.

The midterm was open book, he even shared the previous year's exams. The final, as expected, closed book, thank you very much.

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

#300

Post by idiotsecant »

slibhb wrote: post #80
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…

> In my mind, it's pretty simple: I'm a human, LLMs are not. If a human writes a novel, it's inherently worth more. While I appreciate you laying it out so plainly, I disagree. A novel is a bunch of words and I don't care if they were written by one person, five, an AI, or infinite monkeys on typewriters. What's valuable in a novel (or a poem) is in the words.

Good news! I have so many words for sale. Humans spend so much time trying to put them together in 'meaningful' ways. I take all the hassle out of it! Dirt cheap! Billions of words! How many would you like?
Post reply on HN