Metacognitive laziness: Effects of generative AI on learning motivation • Hacker News Board

Re: Metacognitive laziness: Effects of generative AI on learning motivation

#201

Post by aylmao » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 6:20 PM UTC

engineer_22 wrote: post #68

roydivision wrote: post #45

This stands to reason. If you need the answer to a question, and you can either get it directly, or spend time researching the answer, you're going to learn much more with the latter approach than the former. You may be disciplined enough to do more research if the answer is directly presented to you, but most people will not do that, and most companies are not interested in that, they want quick 'efficient', 'compet…

We have accounts from the ancient Greeks of the old-school's attitude towards writing. In the deep past, they maintained an oral tradition, and scholars were expected to memorize everything. They saw writing/reading as a crutch that was ruining the youth's memory. We stand now at the edge of a new epoch, reading now being replaced by AI retrieval. There is concern that AI is a crutch, the youth will be weakened. My o…

> In the deep past, they maintained an oral tradition, and scholars were expected to memorize everything. They saw writing/reading as a crutch that was ruining the youth's memory.

Could you share a source for this? The research paper I found has a different hypothesis; it links the slow transition to writing to trust, not an "old-school's attitude towards writing". Specifically the idea that the institutional trust relationships one formed with students, for example, would ensure the integrity of one's work. It then concludes that "the final transition to written communications was completed only after the creation of institutional forms of ensuring trust in written communications, in the form of archives and libraries".

So essentially, anyone could write something and call it Plato's work. Or take a written copy of Plato's work and claim they wrote it. Oral tradition ensured only your students knew your work; and you trusted them to not misattribute it. Once libraries and archives came to exist though, they could act as a trustworthy source of truth where one could confirm wether some work was actually Plato or not, and so scholars got more comfortable writing.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331255474_The_Attit...

Re: Metacognitive laziness: Effects of generative AI on learning motivation

#202

Post by colechristensen » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 6:22 PM UTC

roydivision wrote: post #45

This stands to reason. If you need the answer to a question, and you can either get it directly, or spend time researching the answer, you're going to learn much more with the latter approach than the former. You may be disciplined enough to do more research if the answer is directly presented to you, but most people will not do that, and most companies are not interested in that, they want quick 'efficient', 'compet…

>you can either get it directly, or spend time researching the answer, you're going to learn much more with the latter

A LOT of the time the things I ask LLMs for are to avoid metaphorically wading through a garbage dump looking for a specific treasure. Filtering through irrelevant data and nonsense to find what I'm looking for is not personal development. What the LLM gives back is often a very much better jumping off point for looking through traditional sources for information.

Re: Metacognitive laziness: Effects of generative AI on learning motivation

#203

Post by strix_varius » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 6:27 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #202

roydivision wrote: post #45

This stands to reason. If you need the answer to a question, and you can either get it directly, or spend time researching the answer, you're going to learn much more with the latter approach than the former. You may be disciplined enough to do more research if the answer is directly presented to you, but most people will not do that, and most companies are not interested in that, they want quick 'efficient', 'compet…

>you can either get it directly, or spend time researching the answer, you're going to learn much more with the latter A LOT of the time the things I ask LLMs for are to avoid metaphorically wading through a garbage dump looking for a specific treasure. Filtering through irrelevant data and nonsense to find what I'm looking for is not personal development. What the LLM gives back is often a very much better jumping o…

Often when I ask LLM things about topics I was once reasonably expert in, but have spent a few months or years away from, its answers provide garbage as if it were treasure.

Re: Metacognitive laziness: Effects of generative AI on learning motivation

#204

Post by snapcaster » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 6:30 PM UTC

sanderjd wrote: post #156

regentbowerbird wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> compared this to researching on the internet, there are some good aspects, but more often than not, I end up reading an opinionated post by someone (no matter the topic, if you go deep enough, you will land on an opinionated factual telling). ChatGPT is in fact opinionated, it has numerous political positions ("biases") and holds some subjects taboo. The difference is that a single actor chooses the political opini…

Fine. But it would never occur to me to try to form political opinions using chatgpt.

I don't think that's modeling the risk correctly. In my mind the risk is that ChatGPT's creators are able to influence your political opinions _without_ you seeking that out

Re: Metacognitive laziness: Effects of generative AI on learning motivation

#205

Post by aylmao » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 6:34 PM UTC

kridsdale1 wrote: post #139

sarchertech wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woe be to us all if the skill of thinking goes away.

We’re racing to the dopamine drip feed pod people life

I remember when I was younger, learning about economic models, including free market liberalism. I thought surely human desire left to their own devices can't possibly lead to meaningful progress. It can lead to movement alright, and new technology, but I had my doubts it could lead to meaningful progress.

The longer I see things play out, especially in neoliberal economies, the further I seem to confirm this. Devoid of policy with ideals and intention, fully liberalized markets seem to just lead to whatever produces the most dopamine for humans.

Re: Metacognitive laziness: Effects of generative AI on learning motivation

#206

Post by Nevermark » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 6:35 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #191

Nevermark wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Information technology has grown exponentially since the first life form created a self-sustaining, growing loop. You can see evolution speeding up rapidly, the jumbled information inherent in chemical metabolisms evolved to centralize their information in DNA, and then as DNA evolved to componentize body plans. RATE: over billions of years. Nerves, nervous systems, brains, all exponentially drove individual informat…

> Grown exponentially since the first life form Not really. The total computing power available to humanity per person has likely gone down as we replaced “self driving” horses with cars. People created those curve by fitting definitions to the curve rather than data.

You can't disprove global warming by pointing out an extra cool evening.

But I don't understand your point even as stated. Cars took over from horses as technology provided transport with greater efficiencies and higher capabilities than "horse technology".

Subsequently transport technology continued improving. And continues, into new forms and scales.

How do you see the alternative, where somehow horses were ... bred? ... to keep up?

Re: Metacognitive laziness: Effects of generative AI on learning motivation

#207

Post by tippytippytango » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 6:37 PM UTC

This is not a concern when you are responsible for real results. If you aren’t responsible for real results you can pass off the good rhetoric of these models as an “answer”. But when you need results you realize most answers they give are just rhetoric. They are still extremely valuable, but they can only help you when you have done the work to get deep understanding of the problem, incentivized by actually solving it.

Re: Metacognitive laziness: Effects of generative AI on learning motivation

#208

Post by LanceH » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 6:37 PM UTC

engineer_22 wrote: post #68

roydivision wrote: post #45

This stands to reason. If you need the answer to a question, and you can either get it directly, or spend time researching the answer, you're going to learn much more with the latter approach than the former. You may be disciplined enough to do more research if the answer is directly presented to you, but most people will not do that, and most companies are not interested in that, they want quick 'efficient', 'compet…

We have accounts from the ancient Greeks of the old-school's attitude towards writing. In the deep past, they maintained an oral tradition, and scholars were expected to memorize everything. They saw writing/reading as a crutch that was ruining the youth's memory. We stand now at the edge of a new epoch, reading now being replaced by AI retrieval. There is concern that AI is a crutch, the youth will be weakened. My o…

Gen x here. There are couple things I've been on both sides of.

Card catalogs in the library. It was really important focus on what was being searched. Then there was the familiarity with a particular library and what they might or might not have. Looking around at adjacent books that might spawn further ideas. The indexing now is much more thorough and way better, but I see younger peers get less out of the new search than they could.

GPS vs reading a map. I keep my GPS oriented north which gives me a good sense of which way the streets are headed at any one time, and a general sense of where I am in the city. A lot of people just drive where they are told to go. Firefighters (and pizza delivery) still learn all the streets in their districts the old school way.

Some crutches are real. I've yet to meet someone who opted for a calculator instead of putting in the work with math who ended up better at math. It might be great for getting through math, or getting math done, but it isn't better for learning math (except to plow through math already learned to get to the new stuff).

So all three of these share the common element of "there is a better way now", but at the same time learning it the old way better prepares someone for when things don't go perfectly. Good math skills can tell you if you typoed on the calculator. Map knowledge will help with changes to traffic or street availability.

We see students right now using AI to avoid writing at all. That's great that they're are learning a tool which can help their deficient writing. At the same time their writing will remain deficient. Can they tell the tone of the AI generated email they're sending their boss? Can they fix it?

Re: Metacognitive laziness: Effects of generative AI on learning motivation

#209

Post by Nevermark » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 6:47 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #200

Nevermark wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Information technology has grown exponentially since the first life form created a self-sustaining, growing loop. You can see evolution speeding up rapidly, the jumbled information inherent in chemical metabolisms evolved to centralize their information in DNA, and then as DNA evolved to componentize body plans. RATE: over billions of years. Nerves, nervous systems, brains, all exponentially drove individual informat…

human existence doesn't really scale exponentially, that's my take on this

Our best bets are the following I think:

First, and above all, Ethics. Ethics of humans, matters more than anything. We need to straighten out the ethics of the technology industry. That sounds formidable, but business models based on extraction, or externalizing damage, are creating a species of "corporate life forms" and ethically challenged oligarchs that are already driving the first wave of damage coming out of AI advancement.

If we don't straighten ourselves out, it will get much worse.

Superintelligence isn't going to be unethical in the end, because ethics are just the rational (our biggest weakness) big-picture long-term (we get weak there too) positive sum games individuals create that benefit all individuals abilities to survive, and thrive. With the benefits for all compounding. In economic/math terms, it is what is called a "great attractor". The only and inevitable stable outcome. The only question is, does that start with us in partnership, or do they establish that sanity after our dysfunctions have caused us all a lot of wasted time.

The second, is that those of us that want to, need to be able to keep integrating technology into our lives. I mean that literally. From mobile, right into our biology. At some point direct connections, to fully owned, fully private, fully personalizable, full tech mental augmentation. Free from surveillance, gatekeepers, surveillance and coercion.

That is a very narrow but very real path from human, to exponential humans, to post-human. Perhaps preserving conscious continuity.

If after a couple decades of being a hybrid, I realize that all my biologically stored memories are redundant, and that 99.99% of my processing is now running on photonics (or whatever) anyway, I am likely to have no more problem jettisoning the brain that originally gave me consciousness, as I do every day, jettisoning the atoms and chemistry that constantly flow through me, only a temporarily part of my brain.

The final word of hope, is that every generation gets replaced by the next. For some of us, viewing obsolescence by AI as no more traumatic, than getting replaced by a new generation of uncouth youth, helps. And that this transition is far more momentous and interesting, can provide some solace, or even joy.

If we must be mortal, as all before us, what a special moment to be! To see!

Re: Metacognitive laziness: Effects of generative AI on learning motivation

#210

Post by reaperman » Tue, Jan 21, 2025, 6:54 PM UTC

Nevermark wrote: post #206

Retric wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Grown exponentially since the first life form Not really. The total computing power available to humanity per person has likely gone down as we replaced “self driving” horses with cars. People created those curve by fitting definitions to the curve rather than data.

You can't disprove global warming by pointing out an extra cool evening. But I don't understand your point even as stated. Cars took over from horses as technology provided transport with greater efficiencies and higher capabilities than "horse technology". Subsequently transport technology continued improving. And continues, into new forms and scales. How do you see the alternative, where somehow horses were ... bre…

Cars do not strictly have higher capabilities than horses. GP was pointing out that horses can think. On a particularly well-trained horse, you could fall asleep on it and wake up back at your house. You can find viral videos of Amish people still doing this today.