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The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

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Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#281

Post by 0xfaded »

jstanley wrote: post #60
password54321 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post was largely about young people who are growing up with these tools and are still at the stage of developing their habits and tendencies. Personally I am glad I learnt programming before LLMs even if it meant the tedious searches on stackoverflow because I didn't feel like I was coming up against a wave of new technology when it came to future job searches. Having done so I can understand and appreciate the i…

Personally I am glad I learnt programming before StackOverflow! Precisely because it meant I had to learn to figure things out myself. I still use StackOverflow and LLMs, but if those things were available when I was learning I would probably not have learnt as much.

I also learned to program in the era of Internet and then early SO. I didn't learn to just RTFM until much later, and when I did it was an epiphany.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#282

Post by jacquesm »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #278
jacquesm wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having opportunity doesn't mean they will seize it. Well, in that sense everybody has opportunity. But I know quite a few people who definitely would not survive their line of employment shutting down. A lot of them have invested decades in their careers and have life complications, responsibilities and expenses that stop them from simply 'seizing opportunity'. For them it would be the end of the line, hopefully so…

Generally speaking, yes. I do understand not everyone has the opportunities for life circumstances beyond their control. So I don't want to belittle that. But speaking in macroeconomics, most people have the capacity to readjust if needed. I had to do so these last few years (and yes, am thankful I am "able bodied" and have a family/friend network to help me out when at my lowest points). And the market really sucks,…

> most people have the capacity to readjust if needed

I am not so sure about that. I know I can. But I also know that I'm pretty privileged, where most people are not.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#283

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

visarga wrote: post #140
mnky9800n wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that a couple papers counts for much of anything. A couple scientific articles form an opinion about a topic. The evidence shown in those papers are certainly something to think about, but there hasn't been enough time or effort put into the use of understanding how AI technologies aide technical work and the ability to solve more complex problems to make some sort of suggested claim that it is inherent…

Time goes forward, in the future when will you be in a situation you can't access a LLM? Better use LLM as much as possible to learn the skills of controlling agents, scaffolding constrains, docs, breaking problems in such a way that AI can solve them. These are the skills that matter now. We don't practice much using the assembler either, or the slide ruler. I also lost the skill to start an old Renault 12 which I o…

> "when will you be in a situation you can't access a LLM...?"

When you're unemployed, homeless, or cash strapped for other reasons, as has happened to more than a few HNers in the current downturn, and can't make your LLM payments.

And that doesn't even account for the potential of inequality, where the well-off can afford premium LLM services but the poor or unemployed can only afford the lowest grades of LLM service.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#284

Post by artur_makly »

1718627440 wrote: post #185
artur_makly wrote: post #145

One way schools, from middle and high schools to universities, can mitigate AI-driven cheating and cognitive decline is by radically rethinking how they conduct final exams. They should require in-person oral dissertations, presented before a panel of one to three teachers and lasting one to two hours. Ideally, the topic would be based on the student’s own original thesis. This approach restores creativity and critic…

How is this not what is currently the norm? How do dissertations work at your university, if they are not exactly this?

For PHDs yes. Everyone else takes written exams. Highschool needs this hard.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#285

Post by dagmx »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #273
dagmx wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s also something any number of people can fake easily. There’s a ton of smooth talkers who can hype up a project and talk in abstract about their previous projects but weren’t on the side of delivering it.

Show code and explain, or it didn't happen. Takes a capable interviewer, of course, to distinguish sweet talk from profound knowledge.

I’m confused by your response. You expect the candidates to show code from their current/previous employer ? Or side projects that most people aren’t allowed to do by employers?

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#286

Post by dagmx »

Ekaros wrote: post #218
spaceballbat wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jump from junior to senior means you can self start and have created enough of a network to seek out help. Junior used to be a 1-3 year training period. Senior to principal means you have signififcant positive impact across the company: upper management relies on you to define the roadmap. Most people hang out in ‘senior’ for their entire careers because they never have that drive to stand out. Thats why there ar…

I always wondered why don't we have just developer level. That is for those with say 5-7 years of experience. That are skilled enough to do their bit on their own, but might not yet fully see the big picture on whole application scale for whole thing... Straight from junior to senior just feels weird jump. Junior and Senior sound like adjectives to me. Qualifiers. And there should be some middle point in between wher…

A lot of companies do have levels. See http://www.levels.fyi

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#287

Post by jryle70 »

majorbugger wrote: post #47
Trias11 wrote: post #25

AI is just a helpful tool. Ages ago someone surely cried that cars will cause our legs to disfunction.

Smartphones are just a helpful tool, yet in conjunction with social media they can be attributed to decline of social relations and attention in children, raising levels of depression, etc.

Email are inundated with spams, but it's still a helpful tool. We don't stop using email because of spam. Good things happen because of email communication everyday.

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#289

Post by vivzkestrel »

simianwords wrote: post #101

Why does everyone talk about this part of the issue but never the other one? Society can’t progress if we can’t delegate the boring stuff and work on complicated stuff. How else will it progress? Do you think we could have progressed to this level if we were still calculating stuff by hand? Log tables??

who decides what is boring stuff? there are prompts on github to build entire applications from scratch. if you are going to go in this direction, what happens to the critical thinking pathways inside your brain that no longer have to work?

Re: The deadline isn't when AI outsmarts us – it's when we stop using our own minds

#290

Post by StanislavPetrov »

jstanley wrote: post #60
password54321 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post was largely about young people who are growing up with these tools and are still at the stage of developing their habits and tendencies. Personally I am glad I learnt programming before LLMs even if it meant the tedious searches on stackoverflow because I didn't feel like I was coming up against a wave of new technology when it came to future job searches. Having done so I can understand and appreciate the i…

Personally I am glad I learnt programming before StackOverflow! Precisely because it meant I had to learn to figure things out myself. I still use StackOverflow and LLMs, but if those things were available when I was learning I would probably not have learnt as much.

I can still remember learning my first "real" programming language (Turbo Pascal[1]) in 1990, entirely out of a book! It took much longer to figure things out entirely on my own when I was stuck on something, but once I figured it out and overcame it I'd spent enough time working through it to gain a thorough understanding of whatever the problem was. Going through this process eventually gave me a much greater understanding of programming as a whole and made it much easier to pick up new languages. I fear this will be lost on a generation growing up with LLMs.

(1)https://archive.org/details/borland-turbo-pascal-6.0-1990

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