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The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

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Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#141

Post by jmward01 »

There is some discussion here, but the counterargument was never raised: We are transitioning to new things to learn and focus on so the old tests and measures aren't valid.

Think of it like this: If 3d printing (finally) gets good enough, is it an issue that most people aren't good at traditional manufacturing? I think we have discussion to be had here but articles like this always strike me as shallow since they keep judging now based on the past. This is a common problem. We see it in politics (make X great again anyone?) and it is a very hard problem to solve since understanding 'better' is a very hard thing to do even with hindsight much less when you are in the middle of change. I do think AI has serious harms, but if all we do is look for the harms we won't find and capture the benefits. Articles should balance these things better.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#142

Post by risyachka »

Narciss wrote: post #91
dagmx wrote: post #85

Atrophy has really been an issue in my recent hiring cycles for good senior engineers. 80% of senior candidates I interview now aren’t able to do junior level tasks without GenAI helping them. We’ve had to start doing more coding tests to weed their skill set out as a result, and I try and make my coding tests as indicative of our real work as possible and the work they current do. But these people are struggling to…

I was actually thinking about this the other day while vibe coding for a side project. I am a lead engineer, but I’ve been using AI in much of my code recently. If you were to ask me to code anything manually right now, I could do it, but it would take a bit to acclimate to writing code line by line. By “a while”, I mean maybe a few days. Which means that if we were to do a coding interview without LLMs, I would prob…

>> and I would get back on track in a few days

Thats the issue. How can one be sure you can actually get back on track - or - you never were on the track in the first place and you are just an AI slopper?

Thats why on interview you need to show skills. And on actual job you can use AI.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#143

Post by jstummbillig »

dagmx wrote: post #93
k__ wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a matter of opinion what you should know and what you can easily google or ask an LLM.

If someone needs to continuously google how to use the basic data structures in a language they use every day, then I worry about their ability for knowledge retention as a whole.

The question is: What are they better at? If you think the answer is "Nothing", I would be suspicious.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#144

Post by NaomiLehman »

raincole wrote: post #127
jncfhnb wrote: post #80

Can’t say the author’s fixation on reading long texts resonates with me. I’m sure Newton’s Principia is interesting and all but… no I’m not going to read that. Conciseness is a valuable thing. It wasn’t practical to convey knowledge in a short form previously because printing and distributing a blog post worth of info was too expensive. On some level long form content just seems… poorly written. It’s long for the sak…

Reading books is good for your brain. Even just fiction [0]. But I do think people often approach this issue wrong. Especially, as demonstrated by the OP article: > “Daniel Shore, the chair of Georgetown’s English department, told me that his students have trouble staying focused on even a sonnet,” Horowitch wrote. It's a wrong question to ask why people can't focus on a sonnet. The real question is: why do the stude…

I would say that fiction is incredibly more important than reading non-fiction, in general, for human development.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#145

Post by artur_makly »

One way schools, from middle and high schools to universities, can mitigate AI-driven cheating and cognitive decline is by radically rethinking how they conduct final exams.

They should require in-person oral dissertations, presented before a panel of one to three teachers and lasting one to two hours. Ideally, the topic would be based on the student’s own original thesis.

This approach restores creativity and critical thinking, because at any moment during the examination, teachers can ask probing questions, explore unexpected tangents, and even encourage real-time brainstorming.

THIS is the kind of challenge that can help our species evolve beyond its current state of neurological atrophy.

NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study has been doing this since'72

https://gallatin.nyu.edu/

*it was probably the most stimulating 4 years of my life.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#146

Post by ben_w »

spaceballbat wrote: post #133
dagmx wrote: post #85

Atrophy has really been an issue in my recent hiring cycles for good senior engineers. 80% of senior candidates I interview now aren’t able to do junior level tasks without GenAI helping them. We’ve had to start doing more coding tests to weed their skill set out as a result, and I try and make my coding tests as indicative of our real work as possible and the work they current do. But these people are struggling to…

Grade inflation has spilled over into the corporate world. I’ve interviewed people titled “principal” who would barely qualify as “senior” a few decades ago.

"Senior" was already a weird title, given it could have been anything from 3-10 years of experience even back in 2021.

I've seen people with 10 years experience blindly duplicate C++ classes rather than subclass them, and when questioned they seemed to think the mere existence of `private:` access specifiers justified it. There were two full time developers including him, and no code review, so it's not like any of the access specifiers even did anything useful.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#147

Post by dagmx »

raincole wrote: post #136
dagmx wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone needs to continuously google how to use the basic data structures in a language they use every day, then I worry about their ability for knowledge retention as a whole.

I think it depends on what you consider "basic data structures"... If it's the List and Dict (or whatever they are called in that language) then maybe. But I'd not expect someone to spell the correct API by heart to use Stack, Queue, Deque, etc, even they're text book examples of "basic" data structures.

For me, in a coding test, basic data structures are (using Python terms for brevity):

- lists

- dictionaries

- sets

- nested versions of the above

- strings (not exactly a data structure)

strings are tenuously in my data structures list because I let people treat them as ascii arrays to avoid most of the string footguns.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#148

Post by ben_w »

0x696C6961 wrote: post #118
Herring wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” ― Robert A. Heinlei…

I'm not sure I understand the point you're trying to make. Do you think a senior developer needs a basic understanding of the language they use or not?

> Do you think a senior developer needs a basic understanding of the language they use

4 years ago, I'd have said "obviously".

At this point? Only for specialist languages the LLMs suck at. (Last I tried, "suck at" included going all the way from yacc etc. upwards when trying to make a custom language).

For most of us, what's now important is: Design patterns; architectures; knowing how to think of big-O consequences; and the ability to review what the AI farts out, which sounds like it should need an understanding of the programming language in question, but it's surprisingly straightforward to read code in languages you're not fmiliar with, and it gets even easier when your instruction to the AI includes making the code easy to review.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#149

Post by more_corn »

So like right now? Writing structures your thinking and clarifies your ideas. Students just have chat gpt write for them.

Vibe coding takes the heavy thinking and offloads it to the machine. Even people who know how turn off their brains when they vibe code.

The time is now. The effects are available for inspection today. Pair with ai on something you know well. Find the place where it confidently acts but makes an error. Check in on your ability to reactivate your mind and start solving the problem.

It feels like waking up without coffee. Our minds are already mostly asleep when we lean on Ai for anything.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#150

Post by dagmx »

jstummbillig wrote: post #143
dagmx wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone needs to continuously google how to use the basic data structures in a language they use every day, then I worry about their ability for knowledge retention as a whole.

The question is: What are they better at? If you think the answer is "Nothing", I would be suspicious.

It’s never nothing, but it’s a matter of whether that something is enough of a differentiator.

More so, can they demonstrate that in interviews. We specifically structure our interviews so coding is only one part of them, and try and suss out other aspects of a candidate (problem solving, project leading, working with different disciplines) and then weight those against the needs of the role to avoid over indexing on any specific aspect. It also lets us see if there are other roles for them that might be better fits.

So a weak coder has opportunities to show other qualities. But generally someone interviewing for a coding heavy role who isn’t a strong coder tends to not sufficiently demonstrate those other qualities. Though of course there are exceptions.

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