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LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

arxiv.org

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Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#191

Post by crummy »

beloch wrote: post #117
Murfalo wrote: post #19

I love this line of thinking but the framing comes across to me as a bit inflammatory and uncharitable. Just about anything involved in the exchanged of ideas can be viewed as a virus! That is because, when viewed from an evolutionary biology perspective, ideas are the cognitive equivalent of genes (in fact, this is where the term meme comes from). There's a whole field, evolutionary memetics, dedicated to this. Cult…

>"We model transitions among uncoupled, coupled, and persistently dependent users, and show that the interplay between social transmission, recovery, and collective reinforcement can generate tipping points and technological lock-in." You can finish reading your friend's favorite book or put it down if you don't like it. Neither are you economically compelled to read it by your workplace or forced to build work on to…

Well, the Bible sort of compels you to share it, and in some societies you are economically and socially encouraged to do so.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#192

Post by loopies »

27183 wrote: post #79
jimbooonooo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

offloading thinking is a little/lottle bit different than writing to preserve your thoughts versus memorization. it's more analogous to skipping the writing, plugging your ears, and closing your eyes, while you wait for the answer to be presented before you.

This offloading was present even with pre-LLM googling. Sufficiently powerful search allows you to forget enough of the story to rely on imprecise recall. This is a form of thought atrophy. I think this is probably what Socrates meant. He wasn't wrong, it's just that the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. Even the "calculators make you forget how to do math" people seem antiquarian to me. But I totally get it when peopl…

[dead]

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#193

Post by CalRobert »

left-struck wrote: post #169
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw i noticed you absolutely can't reasonably get a US Via consulate appt for some countries without AI right now so the requiremnts already begun. The consulate is booked out for 3 months and only opens 3 months out. All openings are snapped up before any human could get one. They have a lot of anti-script blocking but AI seems to get around them. So there's an arms race, you pretty much need AI to book it (a basic…

Oh wow, that’s aweful. Where I used to live this would happen with driving tests. Driving schools would book out all the tests and then re-assign them to their students. So at some point it got so bad that when you’re buying a driving lesson you’re also effectively buying a right to take the test. What could the government possibly do to stop this? Some highly technical solution? How about just making it so you can’t…

You could require a phone call or mailing a form (in the post) I suppose.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#194

Post by tylerchilds »

tylerchilds wrote: post #10

If this is interesting, message me about my “elves” They are the cognitive construct I fortified in my mind and in my code before the models began producing their own training materials. My approach is based on two decades of coding without ai. The immunization is becoming increasingly more valuable as people begin understanding the market in which I do business.

Noted: hacker news is not interested in the future, rip.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#195

Post by globular-toast »

walt_grata wrote: post #100
simonklitj wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t suppose he was entirely wrong. I would probably be able to recall a lot more (verbatim) if it all had to be stored in me noggin. I think the trade off worthwhile, however.

Im 45, and i can tell you getting a cell phone absolutely destroyed my ability to memorize phone numbers. During the 90s when i was in highschool i has all my friends numbers, parents work numbers, etc... memorized, i only know my parents and wife now. If you don't use a skill, that skill atrophies

I still remember to this day our house phone number and the numbers of my family, friends and even a payphone down the road, all from 30+ years ago.

I don't even know my partner's number, or email address...

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#196

Post by mjmjmjmj »

satvikpendem wrote: post #168
Murfalo wrote: post #19

I love this line of thinking but the framing comes across to me as a bit inflammatory and uncharitable. Just about anything involved in the exchanged of ideas can be viewed as a virus! That is because, when viewed from an evolutionary biology perspective, ideas are the cognitive equivalent of genes (in fact, this is where the term meme comes from). There's a whole field, evolutionary memetics, dedicated to this. Cult…

Speaking of memetics and favorite books, check out There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm who also wrote some seminal short stories including the one that inspired the Alex Garland show Devs . The book is about how to deal with beings that make you forget you ever saw then, a sort of opposite mind virus.

great book

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#197

Post by sakjur »

sodapopcan wrote: post #101
walt_grata wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im 45, and i can tell you getting a cell phone absolutely destroyed my ability to memorize phone numbers. During the 90s when i was in highschool i has all my friends numbers, parents work numbers, etc... memorized, i only know my parents and wife now. If you don't use a skill, that skill atrophies

...which can come in handy. Sometimes your cellphone battery dies. I still know my parents' numbers from memory (as well as some of my friends' parents' numbers, though that isn't super useful) but I am concerned about it sometimes.

I still dial my parents by number rather than using their contact largely to keep that memory fresh and flexed.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#198

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Murfalo wrote: post #19

I love this line of thinking but the framing comes across to me as a bit inflammatory and uncharitable. Just about anything involved in the exchanged of ideas can be viewed as a virus! That is because, when viewed from an evolutionary biology perspective, ideas are the cognitive equivalent of genes (in fact, this is where the term meme comes from). There's a whole field, evolutionary memetics, dedicated to this. Cult…

your friend would be a possible infection point (not a virus) for the memes encoded in the book. As a form of memetic transmission a book, if read all the way through, is especially potent - take Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged as an example. Books are many memes assembled together into a stable culture that reinforces the memes. The virtues of selfishness as a meme would be weak and probably die pretty quickly without all the support the book offers.

Friends probably are not wide spreading infection points, the way reviews in professional journals are or the idea that successful people have recommended things, but they are especially successful at making the transmitted meme stick, as you will keep getting reinfected from them over time. Unless you break up that dangerous friendship!!

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#199

Post by somenameforme »

CalRobert wrote: post #193
left-struck wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, that’s aweful. Where I used to live this would happen with driving tests. Driving schools would book out all the tests and then re-assign them to their students. So at some point it got so bad that when you’re buying a driving lesson you’re also effectively buying a right to take the test. What could the government possibly do to stop this? Some highly technical solution? How about just making it so you can’t…

You could require a phone call or mailing a form (in the post) I suppose.

Steam also had a pretty nice idea with the Steamdeck. You book appointments for a month in the e.g. 2 weeks prior, but those who get booked, and when they are booked, are randomly chosen amongst all people/times in those 2 weeks. And then you repeat the same process next month and so on.

Re: LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

#200

Post by camgunz »

simlevesque wrote: post #51
camgunz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> humans, on average, are healthier and live longer than ever in human history. Kinda. We also have incredible rates of cardiovascular disease, obesity, and diabetes. While I do mostly buy that the mind and the body are connected, I don't think being able to bench press 250lbs is a necessary, fundamentally human capability. I do think being able to think is. Literally Rene Descartes cogito ergo sum. If we lose cognit…

The higher rates don't make any sense if you don't try to take into account the fact that we live longer. Of course we will accumulate more diseases if we last longer.

You think rates of these things are increasing in children because we live longer?
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