131–135 of 135 posts
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What you mean by "humanist" does not seem to be what philosophers mean by it.
Sounds like "memetics" gives agency to writing as a thing independent of human beings doing writing, which is an interesting frame but also untrue.
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Reading is thinking someone else's thoughts. Writing is thinking your own thoughts. There's a big difference, and is why writing is so painful for so many people. It's also why writing is critically important. edit: Likewise teaching is really important. Crystallization of thought is incredible valuable and difficult.
Reading is thinking someone else's thoughts => That is true if you are strictly reading passively. Typically what happens is that reading opens many doors that leads to your own thinking. Of course depends on the type of material you are reading as well. But often reading broadens your thinking relative to just putting your own on paper.
And, as you point out, if you push yourself to read actively, it helps a lot!
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I am experienced in writing scientific papers, so I know what it takes. I remain to be convinced that the tasks you propose an LLM could do contribute any more to the process of writing a paper than dictating to a typist could do in the 1950's. It's impressive for a machine, but not particularly productivity-boosting. Tedious tasks such as correctly formatting references belong to the copy-editing stage (i.e. very la…
But correctly formatting references is pretty much a solved task through reference managers, possibly plus bibtex. It's a well-defined task, after all, and well suited to traditional software techniques. [1] If someone used an LLM to format the references, you would still have to go back through them. If there is any use for LLMs in paper writing, I would think that it is for tedious but not well-defined tasks. For e…
I have often spent more time doing this than writing the original draft, especially for grant applications...
New HN metric: how many comments do you have to scroll down on a LLM-edited/written submission before someone points it out? Triple bonus if the submission is about LLM writing and the need to think for yourself without a LLM, and still no one has pointed this out. Current page score: 333 points.
What makes you believe this was written by an LLM?
It's not 100% unedited ChatGPT and far from the most blatant instance that has caught my eye (they've started showing up in the New York Times and New Yorker as well, have you noticed that?), but certainly sounds like that was used: "Writing compels us to think — not in the chaotic, non-linear way our minds typically wander, but in a structured, intentional manner." "This is not merely a philosophical observation; it is backed by scientific evidence." "Importantly, if writing is thinking, are we not then reading the ‘thoughts’ of the LLM rather than those of the researchers behind the paper?" "overcoming writer’s block, provide alternative explanations for findings or identify connections between seemingly unrelated subjects."
(Note that this is particularly ironic because as the op-ed notes, if they did use it, they are required by Nature to disclose this... https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00191-1 But of course, how would anyone ever prove they did so? You know how difficult it is to get Nature to retract even blatant fraud.)
To add: Reading is also thinking (ideally). And because reading and writing are thinking we must not delegate it to AI models as a matter of habit. In particular, during students' formative time, they need to learn how to think in reading and writing mode - reflecting, note-taking etc. Compare it with the use of a pocket calculator: once you have a solid grounding, it's fine to use electronic calculators, but first o…
No , reading is filling up your mind's LLM with the context given by someone else. Your thinking is what happens after reading.