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LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

arxiv.org

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Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#151

Post by sodapopcan »

mitxela wrote: post #123
chrononaut wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't use a skill, that smo atrophies I don't think the _ability_ to memorize phone numbers is what atrophied here by getting a cell phone. The _need_ did. It's harder to memorize phone numbers today because we lack the practical application of the memory (e.g. only when something fails do we actually try to put that memory to practice). I bet anyone would quickly pick up on memorizing phone numbers if they…

The ability atrophied because it was not practiced because there was no need.

Maybe as per usual, I think we all mostly remembered so many numbers thanks to pattern recognition. I'm old enough to have had a rotary phone in the basement growing that I used less than the various other keypad phones in the house. Whenever I was dialing (literally) a newly learned number on the rotary phone, I to think of what it looked like on touchpad first. Although very quickly I'd get to know the rotary pattern as well.

Of course, this is likely totally a regular memory device people would use. I've done no reading on this so, so if Socrates was wary of writing, was he also wary of pattern recognition or drawing as memory aids?

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#154

Post by sodapopcan »

TZubiri wrote: post #112
jjk166 wrote: post #64

"If men learn this [writing], it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks." -Socrates

There's this fallacy where one defends a modern idea by citing criticism to an old idea, thus positioning their modern idea as revolutionary as the classical one that survived the filter of time.

Ha, indeed! I misguidedly turned to Reddit somewhat recently when the activity on the programming forum I spent most of my time on died down thanks to LLMs. As I got sucked into reading various shit posting on AI, there are multiple quotes daily along these lines. Many are written in a way as if it's the first time anyone has said it (probably most of them are bots). I finally deleted my Reddit account.

Anyway, a particularly funny one I read recently was "Ya, it's just like how musicians who didn't accept synthesizers got left behind." This person apparently believes there have been successful musicals acts based purely around traditional instrumentation since the ~80s.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#155

Post by zzzeek »

Murfalo wrote: post #19

I love this line of thinking but the framing comes across to me as a bit inflammatory and uncharitable. Just about anything involved in the exchanged of ideas can be viewed as a virus! That is because, when viewed from an evolutionary biology perspective, ideas are the cognitive equivalent of genes (in fact, this is where the term meme comes from). There's a whole field, evolutionary memetics, dedicated to this. Cult…

Agree I was immediately mentally substituting "the telephone" and "printed books" for "LLM" and both fit quite well

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#157

Post by computably »

roenxi wrote: post #150
beloch wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"We model transitions among uncoupled, coupled, and persistently dependent users, and show that the interplay between social transmission, recovery, and collective reinforcement can generate tipping points and technological lock-in." You can finish reading your friend's favorite book or put it down if you don't like it. Neither are you economically compelled to read it by your workplace or forced to build work on to…

> You can finish reading your friend's favorite book or put it down if you don't like it. Neither are you economically compelled to read it by your workplace or forced to build work on top of it that will become difficult or impossible to modify/maintain if you bin the book. Economics does sometimes compel you to read books or other material as a condition or expectation of employment. It is difficult to get a good j…

? That's a complete non sequitur.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#158

Post by scotty79 »

beloch wrote: post #117
Murfalo wrote: post #19

I love this line of thinking but the framing comes across to me as a bit inflammatory and uncharitable. Just about anything involved in the exchanged of ideas can be viewed as a virus! That is because, when viewed from an evolutionary biology perspective, ideas are the cognitive equivalent of genes (in fact, this is where the term meme comes from). There's a whole field, evolutionary memetics, dedicated to this. Cult…

>"We model transitions among uncoupled, coupled, and persistently dependent users, and show that the interplay between social transmission, recovery, and collective reinforcement can generate tipping points and technological lock-in." You can finish reading your friend's favorite book or put it down if you don't like it. Neither are you economically compelled to read it by your workplace or forced to build work on to…

> Neither are you economically compelled to read it by your workplace or forced to build work on top of it that will become difficult or impossible to modify/maintain if you bin the book.

Things go viral in professional settings as well. Scrum, agile, pc language ... I'm sure you can find other professional trends that if you decided not to follow your career would be jeopardized.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#159

Post by scotty79 »

greenowl wrote: post #143
beloch wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"We model transitions among uncoupled, coupled, and persistently dependent users, and show that the interplay between social transmission, recovery, and collective reinforcement can generate tipping points and technological lock-in." You can finish reading your friend's favorite book or put it down if you don't like it. Neither are you economically compelled to read it by your workplace or forced to build work on to…

For many of us, AI adoption is really an AI mandate.

If you are an employee, the employer has control over how you should do your work. IF you don't like that, transition to being a contractor and sign service agreements where you are going to be paid solely for results not for how you achieve them.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#160

Post by scotty79 »

jjk166 wrote: post #64

"If men learn this [writing], it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks." -Socrates

He was kind of on point though.
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