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AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

koshyjohn.com

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Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#191

Post by apsurd »

viccis wrote: post #163
staticshock wrote: post #66

The eloquence with which this point gets (repeatedly) made is continuing to improve each next time I read it. However, I still feel like we haven't nailed it. That is, we are not yet at the "aphorism" stage of the discourse (e.g. "the medium is the message", "you ship your org chart", "9 mothers can't make a baby in a month"), in which the most pointed version of this critique packs a punch in just a few words that r…

>the medium is the message If you asked 100 Americans what this aphorism means, I strongly doubt a single one could capture McLuhan's original meaning.

You're right. ive struggled to understand what exactly this means, in large part perhaps it's so often misused?

I think it means something like we're trapped in the constraints of the medium. Tweets say more about the environment of twitter than whatever message happened to be sent.

but i think im off on that, ill look this person up and find out!

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#192

Post by 1ncorrect »

‘AI’ is my newest litmus test for whether who I’m engaging with should be taken seriously or not.

‘AI’ doesn’t exist, and LLMs have vanishingly narrow legitimate justifiable use cases. Any output from one is intrinsically, explosively, imprecise, and can’t be trusted to be build upon without specialist treatment. I’m yet to identify any application of a LLM which can rationally be mistaken for intelligence.

Anyone who persists in referring to LLMs as ‘AI’ is either betraying they don’t understand what they’re talking about, or they’re invested too deeply in an active grift.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#193

Post by apsurd »

woeirua wrote: post #190

I don’t get why we shouldn’t outsource our thinking to the AI. As it becomes more capable, eventually it will be more competent than the average engineer. At that point companies should be _requiring_ the AI to make the larger decisions. By the end of this year AI might be better than all but the very best engineers. Then what?

that's a lot of speculation based on one year of data. We don't actually have the results yet, is the main issue as i understand.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#194

Post by kajaktum »

I am rebuilding numba. It is very hard for me to imagine doing it by hand. I tried it a couple of years ago but it was excruitiangly painful. It was slow and messy. So many small things that gets stacked on top of each other over years of abstraction.

I am doing it again using LLM. Legitimately, things that would have taken weeks is now done overnight. I still have to look at the code, at the generated C output, still have control over the architecture to make it easy for me and the LLM to work with in the future, etc

Is this replacing my thinking? I am not sure. I suppose I would have learnt a lot more about compilers/transpilers had I preserver through it for months with manual writes and rewrites but I would solely be working on this. Instead, I also had some time to write a custom NFS server support for a custom filesystem in Golang.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#195

Post by koshyjohn »

staticshock wrote: post #101
xnx wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This concept won't reach that point because when you chisel too hard it crumbles. There are countless lower level tasks that typical programmers no longer learn how to do. Our capacity for knowledge is not unlimited so we offload everything we can to move to the next level of abstraction.

That's true, but I think it's beside the point. The flip side of that argument, which is equally true, goes something like, "not doing cognitive push-ups leads to cognitive atrophy." There are skills we're losing that are probably ok to lose (e.g. spacial memory & reasoning vs GPS, mental arithmetic vs calculators), primarily because those are well bounded domains, so we understand the nature of the codependency we'r…

> "not doing cognitive push-ups leads to cognitive atrophy" This is one of the points being made in the post, at least in reference to people who already have some mastery of their craft. If they outsource their thinking without elevating it, they aren't exercising that metaphoric muscle between their ears.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#196

Post by 23df »

willhslade wrote: post #171
ua709 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your point, I just wonder how accurate it is. We basically never look at the output of the compiler, so I agree that tool allows one to operate at a higher level than assembly. But I always have to wade through the output from AI so I’m not sure I got to move to the next level of abstraction. But maybe that’s just me.

Are compilers deterministic?

For all intents and purposes yeh. Its really about the variance in actual outcomes vs the expected. The variance is not much is it? With LLMs that absolutely isnt the case.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#197

Post by kochikame »

staticshock wrote: post #101
xnx wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This concept won't reach that point because when you chisel too hard it crumbles. There are countless lower level tasks that typical programmers no longer learn how to do. Our capacity for knowledge is not unlimited so we offload everything we can to move to the next level of abstraction.

That's true, but I think it's beside the point. The flip side of that argument, which is equally true, goes something like, "not doing cognitive push-ups leads to cognitive atrophy." There are skills we're losing that are probably ok to lose (e.g. spacial memory & reasoning vs GPS, mental arithmetic vs calculators), primarily because those are well bounded domains, so we understand the nature of the codependency we'r…

> There are skills we're losing that are probably ok to lose (e.g. spacial memory & reasoning vs GPS, mental arithmetic vs calculators)

I'd argue these are not at all OK to lose. You live in an earthquake zone? You sure better know which way is north and where you have to walk to get back home when all the lines are down after a big one. You need to do a quick mental check if a number is roughly where it should be? YOu should be able to do that in your head.

There might be better examples that support your point more effectively e.g. cursive writing

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#198

Post by joe_mamba »

operatingthetan wrote: post #69
joe_mamba wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single one of those companies you mentioned was lean, agile and run by skilled motivated nerds with mullets and thick glasses in the beginning when they started in a garage. And every single major company becomes bureaucratic and political after 30+ years in the business when the original founders are long retired, and the Wall Street friendly beancounters take over, caring only about the quarterly reports.

You are changing your argument by adding this: "when they started in a garage." 'Lean agile' tech companies are by far the exception, not the rule. Look at OpenAI and Anthropic, both fairly new companies that are excessively political already. This 'garage stage' of lacking politics is a myth, read old stories about Microsoft, when it was 15 people it was political.

>You are changing your argument by adding this: "when they started in a garage."

No, you are.

You first asked: "When was tech not bureaucratic and political?"

To which I replied "in the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's when they started in garages".

What did you fail to understand here?

>Look at OpenAI and Anthropic, both fairly new companies that are excessively political already.

Everything becomes political when you tell them they're worth trillions if they only play the right tune. Money brings out the worst in people. SW companies didn't make trillions decades ago.

Re: AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

#199

Post by 23df »

girvo wrote: post #156
dannersy wrote: post #140

No one uses it this way, despite what people say. They hit any sort of wall and then ask the robot. Thought ends.

Same way everyone gives lip service to reviewing output. I know for a fact that at work most don't, not deeply/properly. You basically can't and hit the volume that's been demanded.

I mean the workplace dynamics are such that nobody really cares unless they find themselves in a position of committing something that could get them fired. Most companies dont treat their workers all that well.

Why would you as a worker bother doing everything pristine? Theres no reward for you. The management of the company will fire you the day they see fit anyway. Not to mention companies tend to give higher salary raises to those who leave and later return - a true slap in the face of 'loyalty'.

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