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LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

arxiv.org

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Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#201

Post by camgunz »

LoganDark wrote: post #67
camgunz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> humans, on average, are healthier and live longer than ever in human history. Kinda. We also have incredible rates of cardiovascular disease, obesity, and diabetes. While I do mostly buy that the mind and the body are connected, I don't think being able to bench press 250lbs is a necessary, fundamentally human capability. I do think being able to think is. Literally Rene Descartes cogito ergo sum. If we lose cognit…

> We also have incredible rates of cardiovascular disease, obesity, and diabetes. To me, this is kinda like saying we have incredible rates of autism. While technically true, the science is still fairly new, so we simply don't have very much historical data. In all likelihood there isn't a sudden epidemic of autism, only improvements to how it's diagnosed.

You think we only recently discovered how to tell if someone is obese?

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#202

Post by wolvesechoes »

SoStupid wrote: post #29

The wording alone is just so Idiocracy . What our descendants will think when they look back on this time period. They weren’t trying to solve aging or bring everyone to the highest standard of living, they didn’t care to connect the world, explore it, and find others. They wondered whether or not a word calculator was the antichrist. They assembled in the highest courts of the day and involved the most brilliant min…

> They weren’t trying to solve aging or bring everyone to the highest standard of living

The latter is a matter of policy and AI is not needed for that.

I hate this framing. Nickname checks out.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#203

Post by UpsideDownRide »

dented42 wrote: post #57
SoStupid wrote: post #29

The wording alone is just so Idiocracy . What our descendants will think when they look back on this time period. They weren’t trying to solve aging or bring everyone to the highest standard of living, they didn’t care to connect the world, explore it, and find others. They wondered whether or not a word calculator was the antichrist. They assembled in the highest courts of the day and involved the most brilliant min…

> They weren’t trying to solve aging or bring everyone to the highest standard of living, they didn’t care to connect the world, explore it, and find others. What are you talking about? Those are absolutely issues that are being worked on right here, right now. This framing is obviously false.

Asking for a friend - how much resources are being spent on data center buildouts vs helping out society at large?

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#204

Post by LoganDark »

camgunz wrote: post #201
LoganDark wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We also have incredible rates of cardiovascular disease, obesity, and diabetes. To me, this is kinda like saying we have incredible rates of autism. While technically true, the science is still fairly new, so we simply don't have very much historical data. In all likelihood there isn't a sudden epidemic of autism, only improvements to how it's diagnosed.

You think we only recently discovered how to tell if someone is obese?

No, that one is real.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#205

Post by probablybayesed »

IIRC Nietzsche's writing style changed because of the advent of typewriters. He didn't need his pen and so wrote more freely (at the apeed of thought).

I think the general concepts are cognitive offloading and second order consequences; changes in human behavior due to the technology. Or just: use it or lose it.

And maybe Jevons Paradox is relevant? E.g., when compact fluorescent light bulbs were introduced people got cheaper lights so people installed more sich that a net energy consumption was increased per person. But then applied to LLMs: generating text/information becomes increasingly easier and instead of less text we produce more and thus more llms are used to consume that information overload to summarize, making us spend more time on text.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#206

Post by Muromec »

scotty79 wrote: post #186
Muromec wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>whether or not linear algebra will bring about Armageddon. It's important to make sure it in fact doesn't, otherwise there is nobody to throw a shade on our time capsule having the benefit of hindsight

If we can usually raise a human to be a good person that wouldn't do genocide I'm sure we can raise an AI, especially since we have direct access to its brain and many, many retries.

That's a big if actually.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#207

Post by zx8080 »

probablybayesed wrote: post #205

IIRC Nietzsche's writing style changed because of the advent of typewriters. He didn't need his pen and so wrote more freely (at the apeed of thought). I think the general concepts are cognitive offloading and second order consequences; changes in human behavior due to the technology. Or just: use it or lose it. And maybe Jevons Paradox is relevant? E.g., when compact fluorescent light bulbs were introduced people go…

> He didn't need his pen and so wrote more freely (at the apeed of thought).

Probably surprising for some, but it's possible (and pretty usual) to write at the speed of thought with a pen.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#208

Post by SllX »

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…

> Just about anything involved in the exchanged of ideas can be viewed as a virus!

You are correct. I frequently do this with religions & specific ideologies which seem to root themselves in people the same way that religions do & it certainly isn’t intended to be a charitable framing.

The core of a virus in biology after all is essentially a packet of information which gets injected into host cells in order to replicate the virus in order to spread itself further afield.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#209

Post by wseqyrku »

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…

> the framing comes across to me as a bit inflammatory and uncharitable

Nah, sometimes you should just come out say it. Those who get offended need to hear it more than anyone else.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#210

Post by andai »

SllX wrote: post #208
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…

> Just about anything involved in the exchanged of ideas can be viewed as a virus! You are correct. I frequently do this with religions & specific ideologies which seem to root themselves in people the same way that religions do & it certainly isn’t intended to be a charitable framing. The core of a virus in biology after all is essentially a packet of information which gets injected into host cells in order to repli…

>The core of a virus in biology after all is essentially a packet of information which gets injected into host cells in order to replicate the virus in order to spread itself further afield.

This is also how I was made, I think.

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