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Metacognitive laziness: Effects of generative AI on learning motivation

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

#241

Post by sanderjd »

snapcaster wrote: post #204
sanderjd wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I honestly don't see how. I haven't ever asked a question that implicates politics. This is just not what I use it for.

I understand the concern about this risk in general. I'm just making a personal observation that this isn't how I use these tools.

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

#242

Post by sanderjd »

redcobra762 wrote: post #194
sanderjd wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really think the ability to ask questions entirely free from all judgment is an under-emphasized aspect of the power of these tools. Yes, some people are intellectually secure enough to ask the "dumb" questions of other humans, but most people are not, especially to an audience of strangers. I don't think I ever once asked a question on Stack Overflow, because it was easy to see how the question I worried might be…

The tool is absolutely biased, what makes you think it wouldn’t be?

My comment doesn't say anything about bias...

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

#243

Post by fny »

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…

We've had AI retrieval for two decades--this is the first time you can outsource your intelligence to a program. In the 2000-2010s, the debates was "why memorize when you can just search and synthesize." The debate is now "why even think?" (!)

I think its obvious why it would be bad for people to stop thinking.

1. We need people to be able to interact with AI. What good is it if an AI develops some new cure but no one understands or knows how to implement it?

2. We need people to scrutinize an AI's actions.

3. We need thinking people to help us achieve further advances in AI too.

4. There are a lot of subjective ideas for which there are no canned answers. People need to think through these for themselves.

5. Also world of hollowed-out humans who can’t muster the effort to write a letters to their own kids terrifies me[0]

I could think of more, but you could also easily ask ChatGPT.

[0]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/08/02/google-...

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

#244

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #234
cognaitiv wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The ratio of literacy to illiteracy is constant, but nowadays the illiterates can read and write.” Alberto Moravia, London Observer, 14 Oct. 1979

It’s a pretty interesting point. If a large fraction of the population can’t even hold five complex ideas in their head simultaneously, without confusing them after a few seconds, are they literate in the sense of e.g. reading Plato?

I hope they're literate to understand we're only reading about that alleged exchange because Plato wrote it down.

Median literacy in the US is famously somewhere around the 6th grade level, so it's unlikely most of the population is much troubled by the thoughts of Plato.

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

#245

Post by cma »

idiotsecant wrote: post #164
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…

I don't know if I agree here. When I ask an LLM a question it always leads to a whole lot of other questions with responses tailored to my current level of understanding. This usually results in a much more effective learning session than reading a bunch of material that I might not retain anyway because I'm scanning it looking for my answers.

Also challenging aspects of their explanations to get at something better is good for developing critical thinking.

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

#246

Post by david_allison »

submeta wrote: post #136

My observation is that I learn more than ever using LLMs. I tend to learn asking questions, I did this using Anki cards for years (What is this or that?) and find the answer on the back of the index card. Questions activate my thinking more than anything, and of course my attempt at answering the question in my own terms. My motto is: Seek first to understand, then to be understood (Covey). And I do this in engaging…

> Questions activate my thinking more than anything, and of course my attempt at answering the question in my own terms.

This is very well-studied: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testing_effect [not a high-quality article, but should give an overview]

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

#247

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

fny wrote: post #243
engineer_22 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We've had AI retrieval for two decades--this is the first time you can outsource your intelligence to a program. In the 2000-2010s, the debates was "why memorize when you can just search and synthesize." The debate is now "why even think?" (!) I think its obvious why it would be bad for people to stop thinking. 1. We need people to be able to interact with AI. What good is it if an AI develops some new cure but no on…

I'd argue that most humans are terrible at thinking. It's actually one of our weakest and most fragile abilities. We're only rational because our intelligence is collective, not individual. Writing and publishing distribute and distill individual thinking so good and useful ideas tend to linger and the noise is ignored.

What's happening at the moment is an attack on that process, with a new anti-orthodoxy of "Get your ideas and beliefs from polluted, unreliable sources."

One of those is the current version of AI. It's good at the structure of language without having a reliable sense of the underlying content.

It's possible future versions of AI will overcome that. But at the moment it's like telling kids "Don't bother to learn arithmetic, you'll always have a calculator" when the calculator is actually a random number generator.

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

#248

Post by magicalist »

lazybreather wrote: post #129
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…

Political searches I assume would be very very minor percentage of real learning. Even in such cases, I would rather rely on a good LLMs response than scrounging websites of mainstream media or blogs etc. For an objective response, reading through opinionated articles and forming my opinion is an absolute waste of time. I'd want the truth as accurately as possible. Plus people don't generally change political opinion…

> For an objective response, reading through opinionated articles and forming my opinion is an absolute waste of time

If the sources are all opinionated articles, per GP, that's what the LLM is going to base its "objective response" on. That's literally all it has as sensory input.

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

#249

Post by empath75 »

cognaitiv wrote: post #177
engineer_22 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

SOCRATES: Do you know how you can speak or act about rhetoric in a manner which will be acceptable to God? PHAEDRUS: No, indeed. Do you? SOCRATES: I have heard a tradition of the ancients, whether true or not they only know; although if we had found the truth ourselves, do you think that we should care much about the opinions of men? PHAEDRUS: Your question needs no answer; but I wish that you would tell me what you…

Just keep in mind that Plato and (especially) Socrates made a living by going against commonly held wisdom at the time, so this probably wasn't an especially widely held belief in ancient greece.

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

#250

Post by 65 »

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…

Perhaps we're going technologically backwards.

Oral tradition compared to writing is clearly less accurate. Speakers can easily misremember details.

Going from writing/documentation/primary sources to AI to be seems like going back to oral tradition, where we must trust the "speaker" - in this case the AI, whether they're truthful with their interpretation of their sources.

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