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Thoughts on thinking

dcurt.is

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Re: Thoughts on thinking

#241

Post by luisacoutinho »

While I can somewhat relate to this post, I can't help but think this sort of thinking is expected and even part of a cycle. AI isn't the first time technology takes over something that humans had to do manually. Like photography? You used to have to paint, or pay someone to paint your picture. Then all of a sudden you didn't anymore. Painters might've argued that photographs remove the need to think, plan and decide on how best to execute a painting - photo cameras make all of that so easy. Even the output comes out faster.

I don't see anyone lamenting the existence of cameras. No one wants to go back to a reality in which, if you want pictures of you and your loved ones, you need to draw or paint them yourself. Even painters have benefited from the existence of cameras.

AI is, of course, more powerful tech than a camera - but when I find myself getting stuck with thoughts of "what's the point? AI can do it better (or will be able to)" - I like to think about how people have gone through similar "revolutions" before, and while some practices did lose value, not everything was replaced. It helps to be specific, because I'm sure AI cannot replace everything we currently do - we're just in the process of figuring out what that is.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#243

Post by raincole »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #209
don_neufeld wrote: post #3

Completely agree. From all of my observations, the impact of LLMs on human thought quality appears largely corrosive. I’m very glad my kid’s school has hardcore banned them. In some class they only allow students to turn in work that was done in class, under the direct observation of the teacher. There has also been a significant increase in “on paper” work vs work done on computer. Lest you wonder “what does this gu…

Ironically, states now use AI to grade student essays in standardized tests. English teachers even recommend grammarly.. Students are given a “prompt” for writing. I wish other schools had the conviction you describe…

> Students are given a “prompt” for writing.

What do you think "prompt" mean?

Or you're saying the students are asked to mimic AI's style?

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#244

Post by anoplus »

I think the unhappiness we experience from AI is not because of AI, but a symptom of a society that lacks more humanism. I currently like to define AI's level of intelligence as its ability to reduce human suffering. By this definition, if AI failed to keep you and society happy for whatever reason, then it is stupid. If you or people around you feeling worthless, anxious, depressed, starving, because of AI, it is stupid! And society needs you to fix it!

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#245

Post by jrvarela56 »

emporas wrote: post #208
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…

It is knowledge that gets automated, rather than reasoning. I was thinking of the first solar civilization, which lives totally in space. Near a star, but not in a planet, and no gravitational pull anywhere. They build tubes 10 km long, a shot board is put at one end, and the players at the other end. They shoot darts at the board, and each shot takes 5 hours to reach the target. That's their national sport. Problem…

My initial hunch and many answers in this site say ‘it’s boring I wouldn’t read that’.

There’s something to that: a good author synthesizes experiences into sentences/paragraphs, making the reader feel things via text.

I have a feeling LLMs can’t do that bc they are trained on all the crap that’s been written and it’s hard to fake being genuine.

But I agree you can generate any amount of filler/crap. It is useful, but what I got from GP was ‘ultimately, what’s the point of that?’. Hopefully these tools help us wake up to what is important.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#246

Post by visarga »

jen729w wrote: post #219
emporas wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is knowledge that gets automated, rather than reasoning. I was thinking of the first solar civilization, which lives totally in space. Near a star, but not in a planet, and no gravitational pull anywhere. They build tubes 10 km long, a shot board is put at one end, and the players at the other end. They shoot darts at the board, and each shot takes 5 hours to reach the target. That's their national sport. Problem…

Oh turns out ChatGPT generates exactly the level of banality that one would expect. https://chatgpt.com/canvas/shared/6827fcdd3ec88191ab6a2f3297... I don't want to read this story. I probably want to read one that a human author laboured over.

It would be a mistake to take the banality of current LLM outputs and extrapolate that into the future. Of course they are going to get better. But that is not the point - it is that in the chat room the human and LLM spark ideas off each other. Humans come with their own unique life experience and large context, LLMs come with their broad knowledge and skills.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#249

Post by socalgal2 »

I'm clearly not Dustin Curtis. For me, so far, LLMs let me check my assumptions in a way that is why more effective than before which is to say, I didn't or rarely checked before. I'd have an opinion on a topic. I'd hold that opinion based on intuition/previous-experience/voodoo. Someone might challenge it. I'd probably mostly be shrug off their challenge. I'm not saying I'd dismiss it. I'd just not really look into it. Now I type something into ChatGPT/Gemini and it gives me back the pros and cons of the positions. It links to studies. Etc... I'm not saying I believe it point-blank but at least it gives me much more than I got before.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#250

Post by socalgal2 »

Andrex wrote: post #203
musicale wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everything we create or do is based on something we've experienced or seen. I would add a couple of things to that. First, humans (like other animals) have instincts and feelings; even newborns can exhibit varying personality traits as well as fears and desires. It's certainly useful to fear things like spiders, snakes, or abandonment without prior experience. Second, an important part of experience is inner life -…

What really fascinates me is gender based toy preferences at (I do not participate in culture wars, this fact just straight up fascinates me as a non-masculine gay guy.)

I'd be curious how we know they aren't exposed - 1 year is a long time to see TV shows, TV commercials, toys with pictures of target audience, picture books, etc...
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