Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GPT-4: A Copilot for the Mind

every.to

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 63 posts

Re: GPT-4: A Copilot for the Mind

#31

Post by SllX »

meitham wrote: post #26
cerol wrote: post #16

Am I the only one who thinks this is a really bad idea? By offloading your cognitive tasks to an AI, even though you now look smarter, you're becoming dumber in the long run, because you're never really challeging and exercising your intelect. This book[1] goes into a lot of detail about how rote memorization and recall is essential to critical thinking (you have a limited working memory, and the way by which you're…

I agree with you. In a more extreme example, I wish I never offload my address book to my phone, I can hardly remember a single phone number in my head now!

Would you have remembered every phone number if it were in a Rolodex?

It’s a skill you have to exercise no matter where you keep contact information. Same deal with outsourcing directions to GPS-using maps apps: you can still maintain a basic sense of direction and how to navigate a city without an app as long as you make it a point to do so.

Re: GPT-4: A Copilot for the Mind

#32

Post by wccrawford »

jaqalopes wrote: post #13

All week I've seen basically two dominant takes about how AI is going to impact creative work in the future (three if you count "generative AI is a fad with no value," which I do not): (1) It's going to take people's jobs (rip); or (2) It's going to help people do their jobs better. I'm a writer and have been thinking a lot about use case (2)—since I'm not emotionally ready for my job to be taken by AI, I'm trying to…

It's going to do both, and it's the same thing.

If AI makes people 10% more efficient, companies will hire 10% fewer people to get the same job done. It has both helped people do their jobs and stolen jobs.

Re: GPT-4: A Copilot for the Mind

#33

Post by mrbungie »

danwee wrote: post #27

For me this would work only on a "work" setting. Like, if I'm being paid to perform some tasks, then I want to be able to use tech like "a copilot for my mind". But outside it, I would rather prefer not. If you come to my party using such copilot and start to quote nice books always in the right time, and tell really good jokes and all, well, what can I say, you won't surprise me at all. I actually wouldn't like you…

I think that's totally going to be a problem in X years with devices like Neuralink.

Maybe such devices will be expected to bear some kind of sign to indicate usage and to use them when interacting with others in social gatherings is something that will be frowned upon. Who knows.

Re: GPT-4: A Copilot for the Mind

#34

Post by BoorishBears »

tpmx wrote: post #24
cerol wrote: post #16

Am I the only one who thinks this is a really bad idea? By offloading your cognitive tasks to an AI, even though you now look smarter, you're becoming dumber in the long run, because you're never really challeging and exercising your intelect. This book[1] goes into a lot of detail about how rote memorization and recall is essential to critical thinking (you have a limited working memory, and the way by which you're…

Counterpoint/related: LLMs penalize those who spent most of their education memorizing things/doing rote learning and encourage actual thinking.

Honestly when I read comments about how LLMs will make us all dumb, all I can think of is Steve Jobs telling people they're holding it wrong.

There hasn't been a subject that's gotten me thinking as deeply as LLMs in a minute, and I don't even work at the implementation level.

Just coming up with novel ways to use them is a delightful brain exercise that requires ways of thinking that you don't normally exercise just writing code. And since I started interacting with ChatGPT for example, primarily through APIs rather than the web interface, I've started to scratch a mental itch that "normal" programming hand long since stopped for.

Re: GPT-4: A Copilot for the Mind

#35

Post by dangerwill »

lysecret wrote: post #29

I am extremely bullish on this. I use ChatGPT every day. I am learning at a rate that I haven‘t in years and I love it, the pure fact I can ask follow up question or ask it to shorten things. This is the core problem of learning: I already know this I am bored, I can‘t understand this now. For the first: Hey ChatGPT sum this up for me, for the second hey ChatGPT give me more examples, set this in relation to this. I…

I guarantee that you are not learning anything and if forced to go without ChatGPT you would barely be able to summarize high level overviews about the topics it has "taught you".

Re: GPT-4: A Copilot for the Mind

#36

Post by sorokod »

cerol wrote: post #16

Am I the only one who thinks this is a really bad idea? By offloading your cognitive tasks to an AI, even though you now look smarter, you're becoming dumber in the long run, because you're never really challeging and exercising your intelect. This book[1] goes into a lot of detail about how rote memorization and recall is essential to critical thinking (you have a limited working memory, and the way by which you're…

Not a copilot, an auto pilot. Most people will not be able to resist the temptation.

Re: GPT-4: A Copilot for the Mind

#37

Post by Kelamir »

> If I just ask ChatGPT, I get the answer faster, but I also forget faster. It's not learning.

I agree. Its necessary to put in the effort to internalize knowledge, as well as to recall once in a while. It does seem important to internalize _some_ knowledge.

Re: GPT-4: A Copilot for the Mind

#38

Post by eggsmediumrare »

jaqalopes wrote: post #13

All week I've seen basically two dominant takes about how AI is going to impact creative work in the future (three if you count "generative AI is a fad with no value," which I do not): (1) It's going to take people's jobs (rip); or (2) It's going to help people do their jobs better. I'm a writer and have been thinking a lot about use case (2)—since I'm not emotionally ready for my job to be taken by AI, I'm trying to…

I can't remember the last time I came up with the majority of my scene ideas and beats and character arcs and world stuff independently of actually writing the first draft. I dunno, maybe getting GPT to spit out a draft and then editing it would have the same effect. But I kinda think writing prose is the thing that distinguishes a writer from a person with an idea. I'm not sure I want to read a story someone coaxed out of an LLM. I want to read the words they wrote at 3am when they finally, finally got that chapter or dialogue or whatever to work.

Love the notes/research/et cetera idea though. That's totally different and would be a real game changer.

Re: GPT-4: A Copilot for the Mind

#39

Post by mwigdahl »

wccrawford wrote: post #32
jaqalopes wrote: post #13

All week I've seen basically two dominant takes about how AI is going to impact creative work in the future (three if you count "generative AI is a fad with no value," which I do not): (1) It's going to take people's jobs (rip); or (2) It's going to help people do their jobs better. I'm a writer and have been thinking a lot about use case (2)—since I'm not emotionally ready for my job to be taken by AI, I'm trying to…

It's going to do both, and it's the same thing. If AI makes people 10% more efficient, companies will hire 10% fewer people to get the same job done. It has both helped people do their jobs and stolen jobs.

Even more so -- if this tech makes people 10% more efficient, then maybe there's a strata of business ideas that wouldn't have been profitable without the tech, but can be with it, and they'll be able to grow and hire to absorb the displaced (or perhaps more).

Re: GPT-4: A Copilot for the Mind

#40

Post by dmitrybrant »

cerol wrote: post #16

Am I the only one who thinks this is a really bad idea? By offloading your cognitive tasks to an AI, even though you now look smarter, you're becoming dumber in the long run, because you're never really challeging and exercising your intelect. This book[1] goes into a lot of detail about how rote memorization and recall is essential to critical thinking (you have a limited working memory, and the way by which you're…

I haven't formed a definite opinion on this, and I think I largely agree, but what about a counterargument like this one:

Virtually no one does long division manually anymore, or really any basic arithmetic greater than two digits, because we invented pocket calculators and smartphones that do this for us. And are we any worse mathematicians or engineers because of this? If anything, this has freed us to perform more higher-order reasoning.

And so with these kinds of "AI" assistants, is it possible that the types of reasoning that we offload onto them will free us to reason in even higher orders?

Post reply on HN