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Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

maalvika.substack.com

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Re: Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the same. There's a mixture of no-true-scotsman in the argument that (paraphrasing) "often they did not learn to use the tool well", and then this part is a strawman argument: "They try to frame it in moral terms. But at heart the objections are about the fear of one's skills becoming economically obsolete."

I remember when I first learned the names of logical fallacies too, but you aren't using either of them correctly

Then please educate me on how the logical fallacies are misapplied.

In short, what it comes down to, is you do not know this to be true: "Detractors from AI often refuse to learn how to use it or argue that it doesn't do everything perfectly so you shouldn't use it." If you do know that to be true, please provide the citations. Sociology is a bitch, because we like to make stereotypes but it turns out that you really don't know anything about the individual you are talking to. You don't know their experiences, their learnings, their age.

Further, humans tend to have very small sample sizes based on their experiences. If you met one detractor every second for the rest of the year, your experiences would still not be statistically significant.

You can say, in your experience, in your conversations, but as a general true-ism - you need to provide some data. Further, even in your conversations, do you always really know how much the other person knows? For example, you assumed (or at least heavily implied) that I just learned the name of logical fallacies. I'm actually quite old, it's been a long while since I learned the name of logical fallacies. Regardless, it does not matter so long as the fallacies are correctly applied. Which I think they were, and I'll defend it in depth compared to your shallow dismissal.

Quoting from earlier:

> Detractors from AI often refuse to learn how to use it.. you have to learn how to use it well before you can have a sensible opinion about it.

Clearly, if you don't like AI, you just have not learned enough about it. This argument assumes that detractors are not coming from a place of experience. This is an no-true-scotsman. They wouldn't be detractors if they had more experience, you just need to do it better! The assumption of the experience level of detractors gives away the fallacy. Clearly detractors just have not learned enough.

From a definition of no-true-scotsman [1], "The no true Scotsman fallacy is the attempt to defend a generalization by denying the validity of any counterexamples given." In this case, the counterexamples provided by detractors are discounted because they (assumingly) simply have not learned how to use AI. A detractor could say "this technology does not work", and of course they are 'wrong' because they don't know how to use it well enough. Thus, the generalization is that AI is useful and the detractors are wrong due to a lack of knowledge (and so implying if they knew more, they would not be detractors).

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I'll define here that straw man is misrepresenting a counter argument in a weaker form, and then showing that weaker form to be false in order to discredit the entirety of the argument.

There multiple straw man:

> The same disconnect was in place for every major piece of technology, from mechanical weaving, to mechanical computing, to motorized carriages, to synthesized music. You can go back and read the articles written about these technologies and they're nearly identical to what the AI detractors have been saying... They try to frame it in moral terms.

Perhaps the disconnect is actually different. I'd say it is. Because there is no fear of job loss from AI (from this detractor at least) these examples are not relevant. That makes them a strawman.

> But at heart the objections are about the fear of one's skills becoming economically obsolete.

So:

  (1) The argument of detractors is morality based

  (2) The argument of detractors is rooted in the fear of "becoming economically obsolete".

I'd say the strongest arguments of detractors is that the technology simply doesn't work well. Period. If that is the case, then there is NO fear of "becoming economically obsolete."

Let's look at the original statement:

> Detractors say it's the process and learning that builds depth.

Which means detractors are saying that AI tools are bad because they prohibit learning. Yet, now we have words put in their mouths that the detractors actually fear becoming 'economically obsolete' and it's similar to other examples that did not prove to be the case. That is exactly a weaker form of the counter argument that is then discredited through the examples of synthesized music, etc..

So, it's not the case that AI hinders learning, it's that the detractors are afraid AI will take their jobs and they are wrong because there are similar examples where that was not the case. That's a strawman.

[1] https://www.scribbr.com/fallacies/no-true-scotsman-fallacy/

Re: Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

#212
post #210
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you must consume (I hate that word, but let's go with it) elsewhere. Someone said (maybe Stephen King in "On Writing"?) in order to be a writer you must be voracious reader, and there's no escaping this. It rings true to me. Of course the problem of taste growing much faster than skill remains, but I don't think the answer is to "consume" (yuck) less. I actually don't know if there's an answer.

Something important is “consuming” critically. You can be a passive consumer and never improve your taste or skill. However when you consume with the intent of asking how and then attempting to answer that question ( for skill ) and why ( for taste ) you get a much different experience. Read code, looking for patterns. Look at design looking for patterns. Then play, try to implement what you saw, implement to opposit…

You've just suggested to me following optimization:

  Prioritize "consuming" your frenemies' stuff
Because one always has to pay full attention when doing that :)

Re: Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

#213
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no meaningful taste-skill gap in programming because programming doesn't involve tacit skills. If you know what you're supposed to do, it is trivial to type that into a keyboard. Strongly disagree here. The taste-skill gap still applies even when there's no mechanical skill involved. A lot of amateur music production is entirely "in the box" and the taste-skill gap very much exists, even though it's trivial…

If you know what sound you want to hear, but don't know the compressor settings to make that sound, that is a taste-skill gap. If you don't know what sound you want to hear at all, that's undeveloped taste. If you know what code you want to type, but don't know how to use a keyboard, that would be a taste-skill gap. If you don't know what code you want to type at all, that's undeveloped taste.

> If you know what code you want to type, but don't know how to use a keyboard, that would be a taste-skill gap.

Ira Glass is a writer. Do you think he meant the taste-skill gap was when people couldn't physically write the words on the page they wanted?

Re: Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

#214
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you know what sound you want to hear, but don't know the compressor settings to make that sound, that is a taste-skill gap. If you don't know what sound you want to hear at all, that's undeveloped taste. If you know what code you want to type, but don't know how to use a keyboard, that would be a taste-skill gap. If you don't know what code you want to type at all, that's undeveloped taste.

> If you know what code you want to type, but don't know how to use a keyboard, that would be a taste-skill gap. Ira Glass is a writer. Do you think he meant the taste-skill gap was when people couldn't physically write the words on the page they wanted?

I'm not Ira Glass, I have no idea what he meant. I would argue that taste-skill gap doesn't exist in writing either.

You either know what you want to write or you don't. If you hate the words you wrote, write something else. If you don't know what you want to write, that's undeveloped taste, not a gap preventing your from expressing your good taste.

Re: Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Significant part of what separates 99.9th (or even 90th) from 99.999th percentile is ego management. In particular IQ is not associated with better life outcomes after you have "enough", and that "enough" isn't Mensa level.

How could that possibly be true? The former might be a literal genius (in the genuine unironic sense) in one field, say software engineering of astrophysics or banking or diplomacy. The latter would be a literal genius in all four fields simultaneously.

IQ is just CPU power.

There's no CPU that can't be wasted by bad code.

Re: Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could that possibly be true? The former might be a literal genius (in the genuine unironic sense) in one field, say software engineering of astrophysics or banking or diplomacy. The latter would be a literal genius in all four fields simultaneously.

IQ is just CPU power. There's no CPU that can't be wasted by bad code.

According to who? And how does IQ relate to the comment in the first place?

Re: Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

#218

I've definitely spent more time designing "the perfect system" than using it. There's a seductive comfort in planning that real execution just doesn't offer because actual work has feedback, friction, failure

The "architecture astronaut" syndrome is particularly endemic in software - we design elegant systems in our heads that would take 10x the time to build than a simple solution that actually ships.

There's something deeply satisfying about mentally constructing the "perfect" architecture

Re: Being too ambitious is a clever form of self-sabotage

#220
post #55

This syndrome is called "eternal child" (puer aeternus) in psychology. You were destined to great things. You were exceptional as a child, you learnt to associate your great potential with all the good in yourself, you built your identity around it. You were ahead of your peers in elementary school, whatever you applied towards - you exceled at. So you value that potential as the ultimate good, and any decision which…

Oh God So, what is the lesson here? Gotta let go of pride and risk it for the biscuit (ship something)?

What worked for me, because I definitely had ~all these thought patterns when I was younger, is to make peace with being mediocre. Easier said than done though.

Once you accept being mediocre it opens the path to doing things which might fail.

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