If writing is thinking then what happens if AI is doing the writing and reading?
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If writing is thinking then what happens if AI is doing the writing and reading?
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Re: If writing is thinking then what happens if AI is doing the writing and reading?
#2[dead]
Re: If writing is thinking then what happens if AI is doing the writing and reading?
#3Writing isn't necessarily thinking. For example you can have a spreadsheet of 20 000 words and use an algorithm to randomly pick a sequence of words. No one would call that thinking, even if such a process made intelligible sentences sometimes.
"AI" is using an algorithm and statistics in the same way---it's just more accurate at making intelligible sentences than the example above. I wouldn't call either thinking, would you?
Re: If writing is thinking then what happens if AI is doing the writing and reading?
#4Writing isn't necessarily thinking. For example you can have a spreadsheet of 20 000 words and use an algorithm to randomly pick a sequence of words. No one would call that thinking, even if such a process made intelligible sentences sometimes. "AI" is using an algorithm and statistics in the same way---it's just more accurate at making intelligible sentences than the example above. I wouldn't call either thinking, w…
> No one would call that thinking
No one should call it writing, either
Re: If writing is thinking then what happens if AI is doing the writing and reading?
#5Writing isn't necessarily thinking. For example you can have a spreadsheet of 20 000 words and use an algorithm to randomly pick a sequence of words. No one would call that thinking, even if such a process made intelligible sentences sometimes. "AI" is using an algorithm and statistics in the same way---it's just more accurate at making intelligible sentences than the example above. I wouldn't call either thinking, w…
That’s not at all the point the author is making. The point is people don’t read. Now we don’t even write. At least what USED to be written had to cost a human time, something relatively precious.
Now we can churn out text at rates unprecedented and the original problem, no one reading, is left untouched.
The author wonders what happens when the weird lossy gap in-between these processes gets worse.
There’s lots of evidence that writing helps formulate good thinking. Interestingly, CoT reasoning mirrors this even if the underlying mechanisms differ. So while I wouldn’t call this thinking, I also don’t think reducing LLM output to mere algorithmic output exactly captures what’s happening either.
EDIT: previous != precious.
Re: If writing is thinking then what happens if AI is doing the writing and reading?
#6The title made me think this was going to be about the mental consequences of outsourcing writing to AI. In fact, the article is completely about people not reading documents. Corporate documents to be exact. His examples are from the 00s, so the problem has absolutely nothing to do with AI.
Heck, I, too, have noticed that nobody reads anything: what does that have to do with AI? At least with AI, people could read a summary of his 30 page corporate memo and ask it questions.
I repeat: that people do not read is not a new problem, nor is it made one iota worse by AI.
Re: If writing is thinking then what happens if AI is doing the writing and reading?
#7It’s interesting that people are beginning to question the standard narrative for thinking in our minds
This for example is fascinating https://youtu.be/Ca_RbPXraDE?si=WmqTH-DONchvlJjE
Re: If writing is thinking then what happens if AI is doing the writing and reading?
#8Writing is not thinking. It’s similar to cutting through the jungle. With a pocket knife. And at the end you realize that you’re still at the very beginning. :)
Writing and reading is similar to writing and talking. Multitasking but in reality it is switching between both of them. Really fast switching, but it is not a real parallelism.
Re: If writing is thinking then what happens if AI is doing the writing and reading?
#9In my experience people don't read these large documents because they are not personalized/relevant. When you're writing to a large audience, you naturally assume people know the least amount possible about the subject and start from there. In a corporate setting this comes off as irrelevant or boring. I'm sure rebranding initiatives like One Microsoft, Copilot, or Office 365 makes things simpler for executives but employees are left confused. The memo usually mentions future efficiency gains or synergies but will omit why this brand change is needed. Surely if you're sending a memo to 100k people, it makes sense to not talk about negatives (a good example of this is politicians) but at that point the value of memo is also very low. This may come off as odd but short format videos seem to work much better at large scale. Perhaps the future of communication is really just lots of easy to consume/repeated content.
Re: If writing is thinking then what happens if AI is doing the writing and reading?
#10Thinking is thinking. There is no substitute.