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Thoughts on thinking

dcurt.is

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Re: Thoughts on thinking

#231

Post by nichochar »

malloryerik wrote: post #226

I find LLMs fail and fail hard at what might be the most imaginative form of writing: poetry. Before sending this comment I pecked around the net for examples of gleaming LLM verse. A few articles claimed human readers preferred AI-brewed poetry to the human stuff. I checked the examples. Clearly most of the people surveyed were underliterate -- the human poems were excellent and the AI poems just creepily bad and si…

Even if what you said was true, it will be false within months or years.

What then?

This is the whole premise of the article. Just extrapolate and imagine that it can think and write poetry better than you (it will, and likely soon), what then?

It's a very important question. A cultural one.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#232

Post by [deleted] »

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #179
FeteCommuniste wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pressur…

[deleted]

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#233

Post by bccdee »

fennecbutt wrote: post #181
abathologist wrote: post #159

I think we are going to be seeing a vast partitioning in society in the next months and years. The process of forming expressions just is the process of conceptual and rational articulation (as per Brandom). Those who misunderstand this -- believing that concepts are ready made, then encoded and decoded from permutations of tokens, or, worse, who have no room to think of reasoning or conceptualization at all -- they…

99% if not 100% of human thought and general output is derivative. Everything we create or do is based on something we've experienced or seen. Try to think of an object that doesn't exist, and isn't based on anything you've ever seen before, a completely new object with no basis in our reality. It's impossible. Writers made elves by adding pointy ears to a human. That's it.

No, that's not true.

Quick, what's 51 plus 92?

Now: Did you think back to a time someone else added these numbers together, or are you doing it yourself, right now, in your head? I'm sure it's not the first time these numbers have ever been summed, but that doesn't matter. You're doing it now, independently.

Just because something isn't unique, doesn't make it derivative. We rediscover things every day.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#234

Post by radlad »

drdeca wrote: post #201
JackFr wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Huh? While I essentially never have need to compute a square root by hand (unless it is a perfect square of course), shouldn’t one know how one would?

Why should one? Perhaps they should if it's relevant to their work, daily routine, or interests. But if they have no need for it?

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#235

Post by yoyohello13 »

wjholden wrote: post #7

I just wrote a paper a few days ago arguing that "manual thinking" is going to become a rare and valuable skill in the future. When you look around you, everyone is finding ways to be better using AI, and they're all finding amazing successes – but we're also unsure about the downsides. I hedge that my advantage in ten years will be that I chose not to do what everyone else did. I might regret it, we will see.

I figure if AI gets as efficient as people seem to think. Then spending a bunch of effort getting good at using it now is kind of pointless, because it’s just going to get easier and easier to use.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#236

Post by rkhassen9 »

Animats wrote: post #118
wcfrobert wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the article is getting at the fact that in a post-AGI world, human skill is a depreciating asset. This is terrifying because we exchange our physical and mental labor for money. Consider this: why would a company hire me if - with enough GPU and capital - they can copy-and-paste 1,000 of AI agents much smarter to do the work? With AGI, Knowledge workers will be worth less until they are worthless. While I'm g…

> With AGI, Knowledge workers will be worth less until they are worthless. "Knowledge workers" being in charge is a recent idea that is, perhaps, reaching end of life. Up until WWII or so, society had more smart people than it had roles for them. For most of history, being strong and healthy, with a good voice and a strong personality, counted for more than being smart. To a considerable extent, it still does. In the…

I’ve thought the same. Goons powered by AI, that is.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#237

Post by aeschenbach »

nichochar wrote: post #231
malloryerik wrote: post #226

I find LLMs fail and fail hard at what might be the most imaginative form of writing: poetry. Before sending this comment I pecked around the net for examples of gleaming LLM verse. A few articles claimed human readers preferred AI-brewed poetry to the human stuff. I checked the examples. Clearly most of the people surveyed were underliterate -- the human poems were excellent and the AI poems just creepily bad and si…

Even if what you said was true, it will be false within months or years. What then? This is the whole premise of the article. Just extrapolate and imagine that it can think and write poetry better than you (it will, and likely soon), what then? It's a very important question. A cultural one.

A reckoning of sorts, causing us to confront exactly who and what we are..

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#238

Post by rkhassen9 »

movpasd wrote: post #45
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…

Sometimes the fun is in creating something useful, as a human, for humans. We want to feel useful to our tribe.

I think you articulated the actual point of the OP. It isn’t so much about creating something better than anyone else, but it is a feeling that your contribution and world means something.

AI can somehow cause one to react with a feeling of futility.

Engaging in acts of creation, and responding to others acts of creation seems a way out of that feeling.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#239

Post by rkhassen9 »

aprdm wrote: post #89
StefanBatory wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing that what I do anyone can do, no matter how well I'll do it, is discouraging. Because then, what is my purpose? What can I say that I'm good at?

That's a deeper question that only you can answer. I can only say that your thinking based on how you phrased it doesn't really lead to happiness in general

It is the societal recognition and value of level and contribution that AI threatens and weakens. This is the true loss.
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