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Don't be a meat proxy

gruhn.me

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Re: Don't be a meat proxy

#651

Post by Sharlin »

tptacek wrote: post #624
Sharlin wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People love to say this, but the whole point of IQ is that it happens to correlate well with many other, more practical measures of cognitive capability. That’s why it is used.

Other things also correlate well with many practical measures of cognitive ability, but you wouldn't be so quick to say that they're privileged the way IQ is, so there must be more to the explanation.

IQ is privileged because it's easily quantifiable by definition, testable with minimal setup and (assuming a modern test) more or less universal without cultural biases.

Re: Don't be a meat proxy

#652

Post by OJFord »

"AI says" – if you interpret it and think it's correct and stand by it (and I trust your judgement) then I really don't care where you got it from initially, you don't need to tell me you used AI. But if you're just taking my question and 'meat proxying' it for me, what value are you adding? I can also do this.

Re: Don't be a meat proxy

#654

Post by xyzelement »

bigfishrunning wrote: post #485
xyzelement wrote: post #445

// Claude said: [giant response verbatim] I am lucky that I work with great teams and so when someone says "this is how Claude (or Gemini) summaries the situation" it does mean "I read it and it's right-enough to be helpful, so I am passing it along without editing" Obviously for this to work you need (1) a team that's smart and mature enough to own the AI output it puts forward and (2) shared understanding that peop…

So the answer was "What's going on with this account" was 10 pages of homework, with at least 1 mistake to correct? That doesn't seem like an improvement over a conversation.

It was 10 pages of relevant account history with one fuck up. Not sure how u got you u got from what I wrote

Re: Don't be a meat proxy

#655

Post by marginalia_nu »

w10-1 wrote: post #626
marginalia_nu wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's as old as time to be honest. When Plato complains about writing diminishing our faculties for memorizing things, it's sometimes treated as an example of how we've always pointlessly worried about these things, but he was absolutely correct and the transition from an oral culture to a written culture has absolutely demolished those capabilities. Writing as a technology ended up having strong upsides that mos…

But displacing individual ability is a feature, not a bug. How else could mind-virus like philosophy or religion or science or political legitimacy transit highly-variable humans for generations? Religious organizations, governments, corporations all far outlive their founders and maintainers. Heroes at best only stretch or squeeze the dogma or methodology to grow the organization by better fitting to the culture. An…

Yeah I think a worrying thought is that it has to be that way. A big conundrum for technologically advanced societies is that technology gives us so much power that if people are anything but weak and helpless, they become so dangerous it makes society unfeasible.

Somehow we need to contend with killdozers, school shooters, anthrax mailers, and so on being much more capable than anything even a particularly yoked antiquity nerd like Plato ever could be.

Re: Don't be a meat proxy

#657

Post by tptacek »

Sharlin wrote: post #651
tptacek wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other things also correlate well with many practical measures of cognitive ability, but you wouldn't be so quick to say that they're privileged the way IQ is, so there must be more to the explanation.

IQ is privileged because it's easily quantifiable by definition, testable with minimal setup and (assuming a modern test) more or less universal without cultural biases.

I mean it's certainly convenient! But that's a weak epistemic claim. Obviously, the cultural loading of g and of IQ tests is a complicated subject; I certainly wouldn't summarize it as "universal without cultural biases".

Re: Don't be a meat proxy

#658

Post by mephos »

Realistically many people's jobs are turning into being a meat proxy. But the point should be that you need be a good meat proxy. A good meat proxy injects human reasoning and taste, it doesn't blindly forward LLM-isms into the organization. A human should be able to reasonably compress an LLM conversation into a couple of sentences or follow-up questions that are actually relevant for the team.

Re: Don't be a meat proxy

#659

Post by Mike-Kelner »

The core issue is people replying without putting in any effort, not the fact that they quote AI. Saying, "I heard this might be wrong," isn't much better. If you think it might be wrong, spend a little time figuring out whether it actually applies before posting it.

Re: Don't be a meat proxy

#660

Post by a3mrouter1 »

embedding-shape wrote: post #555
skydhash wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or just that you've never seen it, but you're open to it existing? This one. Only a sith deals in absolute. I don’t mind experiments to try to find methodologies for those tools. And I believe there are instances where they’ve been successfully used. The issue I have is the kind of generic statements that they are good enough to replace currently established methodologies. Like using AI is a panacea. > Personally,…

> Have you investigated how it has helped you? And if there are other, more economical way to get the same result? No I haven't, but I'm happy to just freeform walk you through my thinking on it: I typically write (wrote?) software for two purposes: consulting/freelancing for others so building what others want, or for simplifying and making my own life easier and more enjoyable. "Stupid" stuff like Home Assistant fo…

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