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Thoughts on thinking

dcurt.is

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Re: Thoughts on thinking

#171

Post by smcleod »

steamrolled wrote: post #137

I think the article describes a real problem in that AI discourages thought. So do other things, but what's new about AI is that it removes an incentive to try. It used to be that if you spent your day doomscrolling instead of writing a blog post, that blog post wouldn't get written and you wouldn't get the riches and fame. But now, you can use AI to write your blog post / email / book. If you don't have an intrinsic…

For me it decreases the barrier to try and test new thoughts, never have I felt more empowered to try out new avenues that in the past might have been too time consuming or expensive to dispose of.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#172

Post by smcleod »

iamwil wrote: post #109

OP said something similar about writing blog posts when he found himself doing twitter a lot, back in 2013. So whatever he did to cope with tweeting, he can do the same with LLMs, since it seems like he's been writing a lot of blog posts since. > I’ve been thinking about this damn essay for about a year, but I haven’t written it because Twitter is so much easier than writing, and I have been enormously tempted to jus…

Perhaps they simply are someone who struggles with finding identity and value in change and adaptation.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#174

Post by paulorlando »

paulorlando wrote: post #29
ge96 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah there is the personal passion and then the points/likes driven which sucks the joy out I experienced this when I was younger with my rc planes, I joined some forum and I felt like everything I did had to be posted/liked to have value. I'd post designs/fantasy and get the likes then lose interest/not actually do it after I got the ego bump

I think that's why some writers refuse to talk about their work in progress. If they do, it saps the life out of it. Your ego bump example kind of fits into that.

If relevant, I wrote this in a related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43912331

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#175

Post by bconsta »

harrison_clarke wrote: post #108
steamrolled wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More generally, prior to LLMs, you were competing with 8 billion people alive (plus all of our notable dead). Any novel you could write probably had some precedent. Any personal story you could tell probably happened to someone else too. Any skill you wanted to develop, there probably was another person more capable of doing the same. It was never a useful metric to begin with. If your life goal is to be #1 on the pl…

a fun thing about having a high-dimensional fitness function is that it's pretty easy to not be strictly worse than anyone

pareto adequate

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#176

Post by don_neufeld »

hammock wrote: post #146
don_neufeld wrote: post #3

Completely agree. From all of my observations, the impact of LLMs on human thought quality appears largely corrosive. I’m very glad my kid’s school has hardcore banned them. In some class they only allow students to turn in work that was done in class, under the direct observation of the teacher. There has also been a significant increase in “on paper” work vs work done on computer. Lest you wonder “what does this gu…

> I’m very glad my kid’s school has hardcore banned them. What does that mean, I’m curious? The schools and university I grew up in had a “single-sanction honor code” which meant if you were caught lying or cheating even once you would be expelled. And you signed the honor code at the top of every test. My more progressive friends at other schools who didn’t have an honor code happily poo-pooed it as a repugnantly ha…

The school has an academic honestly policy which explicitly bans it, under “Cheating”, which includes:

“Falsifying or inventing any academic work, including the use of AI (ChatGPT, etc)”

Additionally, as mentioned, the school is taking actions to change how work is done to ensure students are actually doing their own work - such as requiring written assignments be completed during class time, or giving homework on physical paper that is to be marked up by hand and returned.

Apparently this is the first year they have been doing this, as last year they had significant problems with submitted work not being authored by students.

This is in an extremely competitive Bay Area school, so there can be a lot of pressure from parents on students to make top grades, and sometimes that has negative side effects.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#177

Post by __turbobrew__ »

qudat wrote: post #125

Man people are using LLMs much differently from myself. I use it as an answer engine and that’s about where I stop using it. It’s a great tool for research and quick answers but I haven’t found it great for much else.

This is how I use it, as a better google search without SEO spam. I still write everything myself.

In that respect I am not afraid of LLMs making me dumber as I would argue that google search has not made me dumber.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#178

Post by sifar »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #81
curl-up wrote: post #31

> The fun has been sucked out of the process of creation because nothing I make organically can compete with what AI already produces—or soon will. So the fun, all along, was not in the process of creation itself, but in the fact that the creator could somehow feel superior to others not being able to create? I find this to be a very unhealthy relationship to creativity. My mixer can mix dough better than I can, but…

> So the fun, all along, was not in the process of creation itself, but in the fact that the creator could somehow feel superior to others not being able to create? I find this to be a very unhealthy relationship to creativity. People realize this at various points in their life, and some not at all. In terms the author might accept, the metaphor of the stoic archer comes to mind. Focusing on the action, not the targ…

>> Focusing on the action, not the target is what relieves one of the disappointment of outcome.

The primary reason is not that it relieves us of the disappointment, but that worrying about the outcome increases our anxiety and impacts our action which hampers the outcome.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#179

Post by __turbobrew__ »

FeteCommuniste wrote: post #97
perplex wrote: post #15

I don't think LLMs replace thinking, but rather elevate it. When I use an LLM, I’m still doing the intellectual work, but I’m freed from the mechanics of writing. It’s similar to programming in C instead of assembly: I’m operating at a higher level of abstraction, focusing more on what I want to say than how to say it.

When I microwave a frozen meal for dinner, I'm still a chef, but I'm freed from the mechanics of preparing and assembling ingredients to form a dish.

You can also use a microwave to bloom spices, or thaw frozen veggies from your home garden, or steam things, or thicken sauces, …

The microwave is a tool with certain useful aspects and certain limitations. It is also a tool which can lead to faster outcomes of things you need to do if the tool didn’t exist. At what point should a chef draw the line in the tools they use? Should I forgo microwaves? What about pressure cookers? Ovens? Surely knives are fair game? Maybe I should knap flint and butcher meat with it and cook over an open campfire — then truly no one can claim I am not a chef.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#180

Post by [deleted] »

JackFr wrote: post #136
zdragnar wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who has learned a second language can tell you that you aren't proficient just by memorizing vocabulary and grammar. Having a conversation and forming sentences on the fly just feels different- either as a different skill or using a different part of the brain. I also don't think the nature of LLMs being a negative crutch is new knowledge per se; when I was in school, calculus class required a graphing calcula…

Well I can extract a square root by hand. We all had to learn it and got tested on it. No one to day learns that anymore. The vast, vast majority have no idea and I don’t think people are dumber because of it. That is to say, I think it’s not cut-and-dried. I agree you need to learn something, but something’s it’s okay use a tool.

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