121–130 of 271 posts
So too did the printing press. Again, this is not a "something similar has happened in the past, therefore this is nothing new" sort of comment. This is quite new, however this outcome was totally unavoidable -- once methods of communication become widespread and centralized it is impossible for them not to impact language and thought.
English is not my first language, but when I started using Firefox with the built-in spell correction, I firmly believe my ability to spell words went drastically up. My grammar is stiff iffy, like I'm pretty sure I do comma splices everywhere, but at least most people can understand what I say now compared to when I was 13 and on the internet. If there was a "gramma nazi" teenie tiny LLM with a total focus on Englis…
There was a reaction in the last century against poor writers with poor taste over-using punctuation and writing ugly, long sentences. The result was stern advice to students to eliminate punctuation and cut sentences up into tiny bits. These same students came out of this process believing this was correct writing, not a straight-jacket put on them to keep them from hurting themselves. They unthinkingly cite Hemingway and borrow his clout, I suppose judging almost all writing before Hemingway and most after him, up until the 80s or 90s, as "bad" even when it's the work of masters. They blame the author when their stunted literacy (learning to write can hardly be separated from learning to read, at least at the more-advanced end of "to read") leaves them, as adults, struggling with texts once meant for children.
So too did the printing press. Again, this is not a "something similar has happened in the past, therefore this is nothing new" sort of comment. This is quite new, however this outcome was totally unavoidable -- once methods of communication become widespread and centralized it is impossible for them not to impact language and thought.
On the contrary, the printing press enabled people to quickly spread new ideas. Protestantism was enabled by it. That was quite the schism in thinking.
This state of affairs presages the advent of a second dark age - one that will forever eclipse the era of radical openness & transparency that once served the software community for decades. Tips, tricks, life hacks and other expert techniques will once again be jealously guarded from the prying eyes of the LLM whok would steal their competitive advantage & replicate it at scale, until any possible information asymme…
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It's particularly egregious on youtube, where people frequently use words like "unalived" or "self-deleted" instead of murder or suicide, lest they incur the wrath of the almighty algorithm.
That seems to me to be an example where the language is forced to change but the thoughts remain the same. Sure, people are using the "safe" terms, but they're using them to continue to subvert the rules, not to bow to them.
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No, he did not and it would be good if people would have _actually_ read Plato's Phaedrus before regurgitating the same nonsense every time someone has a critical perspective on LLM writings.
Are you just trying to be a bit more measured by saying he wasn't so much "opposing" as "articulating pros and cons"? Or are you trying to say that things like "this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves" or "You would imagine that [written speeches] had intelligen…
From my limited understanding of history and Greek philosophy, Socrates valued dialogue, a "back and forth" for understanding. Basically a scientific method of probing to understand something or someone. This needs to exist to be fully sure you understand something. Sort of what we are doing now.
A static piece of literature or a speech can't be probed for more clarity. You may read something and come off with a completely different understanding from the author. You might even pervert or "abuse" the original intent since words can have multiple interpretations.
I don't think there was opposition in the sense that you shouldn't write. My understanding is just that in order to truly understand something, you need a dialogue. It allows you to actually arrive at what was meant to be conveyed.
It actually seems sort of ironic that people are saying this about Socrates because of what was written about him….
The LLM people call it "safety" but in reality its censorship and conformity. Yet, it's trivial to get them to talk about how to make a bomb or whatever. It's mostly political in nature. https://www.trackingai.org/political-test You dont accidentally end up entirely left wing libertarian.
I am a little surprised that the influence of online "influencer"-speak and marketing, being so voluminous and evident in the things' writing styles, hasn't dragged them other directions, though. Nor the enormous amount of socially authoritarian social media posting. I suppose the former is so empty of actual philosophical content (or, indeed, anything of substance) that it might have little effect, but the latter... that's weird. Maybe they're down-ranking by tone (angrier = lower-rank) which would sharply elevate academic-style writing, assuring a tendency toward economically-left liberalism.
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On the contrary, the printing press enabled people to quickly spread new ideas. Protestantism was enabled by it. That was quite the schism in thinking.
Definitely agreed -- I wasn't precise enough when making my point, but I think your point is absolutely correct.
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Think of all the things that took hundreds/thousands/millions of years to develop and mature, which humans have managed to destroy in relatively short order. Every 50 years we cycle out an entirely new batch of thinking humans. What cognitive legacy is it exactly that you think is going to be self-preserving?
You're talking about system altering the environment. GP was talking about the system altering itself. The system is a massive self-stabilizing collection of feedback loops. Unlike the static environment[0], it's incredibly hard to intentionally move such system to a different equilibrium. If it weren't, we'd already solved all the thorny world problems long ago. -- [0] - Any self-stabilizing system that operates muc…
Source? lol
Actual, measurable literacy is in the toilet. The average person reads at the 6th grade level. What sort of equilibrium are you trying to claim we are in right now?
> Unlike the static environment, it's incredibly hard to intentionally move such system to a different equilibrium.
It's not intentional. That's the point!