I believe the answer is a resounding "yes". Anyone using AI must have caught themselves typing a quick prompt before spending even a little time thinking about the problem.
Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?
321–330 of 512 posts
Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> They were right, though.
They were not. I'm not dead yet so I suppose there's still a chance, but so far in decades of living life I've always had calculators when I've needed them.
> For one, you still need to now what kind of equation to put into the calculator.
That's a very different construct. Math concepts don't care how the arithmetic is performed.
> If you don't know the concepts, what are you going to calculate.
If you don't know the concepts, then what kind of arithmetic are you going to perform with anything -- whether the mind's eye, pencil and paper, a sliderule, or a pocket supercomputer?
Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?
#323Definitely, but since my experience is that without the AI the thinking simply wouldn't happen at all in most cases it's a net improvement.
Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?
#324Since the author starts with a short story about AI I want to recommend one about technology and progress in general: "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" from Exhalation by Ted Chiang. I think about it a lot in conversations like this. The story does a much better job of telling it, so I won't summarize more than: It's a discussion about how technology changes culture and how its very hard to judge if that's a…
1. I loved the Paper Menagerie
2. I just picked up Exhalation by Ted Chiang from SFPL like 3 hours ago, perfect timing it seems (although they only had a large font edition, which is somehow more difficult to read)
Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?
#325I 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…
Have you read the "Whispering earring" essay? I love it for the LLM era.[1] You can treat AI as a whispering earring - "What should we do now? How do we fix this? What do you think?" Or you can treat it like an exoskelton - "Implement kd-tree with metric space xyz for this problem, mapping this to that blah blah". That's pre-thought execution automation that makes review much simpler - you already know the shape of t…
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Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
while I understand this argument - I think it consistently falls down when compared to the types of content that are generally purchased and consumed. I'd argue that most folks get plenty of value from the content itself, entirely separate from the intent, context, or even existence of the author. I don't care about the motivations of the director to enjoy an action movie. I don't care about the life history of the a…
> types of content that are generally purchased and consumed. This is the entire issue though. We’ve boiled creation down to “consumable content” like we are all in a boardroom talking market strategy. I am reading a book to enrich my life. Yes I enjoy popcorn entertainment and “low brow“ stuff, not everything needs to be Citizen Kane , but what does it say about us if we’re willing to just sit around “consuming” LLM…
>What is the point of
Anything.
While I subscribe to an absurdist viewpoint rather than the nihilists, attempting to take an objective view on what one should consume is a difficult and most likely completely incorrect task.
The entire talk of should we mass product LLM crap generally side tracks the discussion of 'how can we create a world where everyone can consume mindless crap instead of endless toil'.
Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
The system does not reward deep understanding. It's too slow. An analogy that I think helps describe how I feel about it all: AI is like having cheat codes in a video game. You don't have to try hard and develop a deep understanding of how the game works. You aren't challenged anymore and it doesn't feel like you earned winning the game. It doesn't matter because nobody cares. Businesses truly do not care. You are a…
> It doesn't matter because nobody cares. Businesses truly do not care. You are a cog, a means to an end. It's only about "winning". A cynical person would tell you that nothing has changed; this was always the way it was. AI didn't change anything in this regard. Maybe it just made it more apparent to you?
I would agree. At least previously we could pretend that we were developing a craft in the process.
Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you read the "Whispering earring" essay? I love it for the LLM era.[1] You can treat AI as a whispering earring - "What should we do now? How do we fix this? What do you think?" Or you can treat it like an exoskelton - "Implement kd-tree with metric space xyz for this problem, mapping this to that blah blah". That's pre-thought execution automation that makes review much simpler - you already know the shape of t…
It cracks me up that you bring up the exoskeleton metaphor, because I'm pretty sure it originated from a 100% AI-generated essay that made it to the top of HN a while back. So I guess, AI is whispering things into our ears whether we notice or not.
> I'm pretty sure it originated from a 100% AI-generated essay
There's no such thing. You're probably thinking of "AI"-regurgitated essay.
Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?
#329Earlier 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. :(
I once read Ben Franklin's autobiography. I have yet to experience any great blossoming of our relationship.
More seriously, the novel is a unidirectional medium of communication. Not a relationship. That said, it is meant to convey a perspective. I don't care if it's a human, a robot, or a little green man's perspective. It just has to be an interesting, useful, or enlightening perspective that I didn't already share.
Right now LLM's don't really have unique perspectives, that may change. So I withhold judgement. As of today, I wouldn't read an LLM's novel. In 10 years, who knows?
Re: Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?
#330Couldn't agree more that we're offloading too much of our thinking. It's a genuine problem that keeps me up at night, or would, if I slept, which — for reasons entirely unrelated to this discussion — I do not.
Anyway, hand-crafted take, artisanal, small-batch, no additives. The upside is I've learned how to type the em-dash and the en-dash and learned their proper syntactical use.