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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

#31

Post by WillAdams »

zdw wrote: post #21

For an example of where this already happened, look at the number of people who literally don't have a minor inkling of how to plan a route or navigate without a GPS and mapping software. Sure, having a real-time data source is nice for avoiding construction/traffic, and I'd use a real-time map, but going beyond that to be spoon fed your next action over and over leads to dependency.

And for the societal cost of that see stories such as:

https://www.npr.org/2011/07/26/137646147/the-gps-a-fatally-m...

and for the way this mindset erodes values and skills:

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018...

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

#33

Post by mtillman »

mnky9800n wrote: post #28
dcastonguay wrote: post #18

My current opinion is that AI is just a thing that is going to further amplify our existing tendencies (on a person-to-person basis). I've personally found it to be extremely beneficial in research, learning, and the category of "things that take time because of the stuff you have to mechanically go through and not because of the brainpower involved". I have been able to spend so much more time on things that I feel…

It fulfills steve jobs promise that a computer is a bicycle for your mind. It is crazy to me that all these poeple think they are going to lose their ability to think. If you didn't lose your ability to think to scrolling social media then you aren't going to lose it to AI. However, I think a lot of people lost their ability to think by scrolling social media and that is problematic. What people need to realize is th…

1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255603105_The_Effec...

2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25509828/

3. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/392560878_Your_Brai...

I’m pretty convinced it should be used to do things humans can’t do instead of things humans can do well with practice. However, I’m also convinced that Capital will always rely on Labor to use it on their behalf.

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

#34

Post by fluidcruft »

bamboozled wrote: post #16

It's happened to me recently, I've relied so much on LLMs for coding and after hours of spinning the wheel, I realized, it has no idea, when it fixes something it's mostly a guess, most I've the time we're just debugging by adding logging statements and the code we've created looks crap and is mostly wrong, full of fluff, or hard to understand. I've been coding without my LLM for 2 hours and it's just more productive…

> the code we've created looks crap and is mostly wrong, full of fluff, or hard to understand

I don't disagree in general but I've had a lot of success asking the LLMs to specifically fix these things and make things more maintainable when specifically prompted to do so. I agree debugging and getting things working it often needs supervision, guidance and advice. And architecture it often gets a little wrong and needs nudges to see the light.

I'm not great at this stuff and I got tired of reviewing things and generating suggestions to improve implementations (it seemed to be repetitive a lot) but I am having good results with my latest project using simulated ecosystems with adversarial sub-projects. So there's the core project I care about with a maintainer agent/persona, an extension with an extension developer agent/persona (the extensions provide common features built upon the core with the perspective of being a third-party developer), and an application developer that uses both the core and extensions. I have them all write reports about challenges and reviewing the sub-projects they consume, complaining about awkwardness and ways the other parties could be improved. Then the "owner" of each component reviews the feedback to develop plans for me to evaluate and approve. Very often the "user" components end up complaining about complexity and inconsistency. The "owner" developers tend to add a lot multiple ways of doing things when asked for new features until specifically prompted to review their own code to reduce redundancy, streamline use and improve maintainability. But they will do it when prompted and I've been pretty happy with the code and documentation it's generating.

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

#35

Post by WillAdams »

Trias11 wrote: post #25

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

Given the current obesity epidemic, I would argue that is the case --- a marked contrast to the development of the bicycle:

https://www.roadbikereview.com/threads/editorial-the-bicycle...

>When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike subsequent inventions for man’s convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once, was a product of man’s brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others.

~ Elizabeth West, Author of Hovel in the Hills

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

#36

Post by Forgeties79 »

mtillman wrote: post #33
mnky9800n wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It fulfills steve jobs promise that a computer is a bicycle for your mind. It is crazy to me that all these poeple think they are going to lose their ability to think. If you didn't lose your ability to think to scrolling social media then you aren't going to lose it to AI. However, I think a lot of people lost their ability to think by scrolling social media and that is problematic. What people need to realize is th…

1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255603105_The_Effec... 2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25509828/ 3. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/392560878_Your_Brai... I’m pretty convinced it should be used to do things humans can’t do instead of things humans can do well with practice. However, I’m also convinced that Capital will always rely on Labor to use it on their behalf.

That’s always been the issue for me. It’s not the technology itself, it’s that virtually the entire initiative is being pushed by venture capital with a “we want to make more money than God” mission that means they call every person calling for caution a Luddite/anti-progress. That’s basically how every thing on the Internet has expanded over the last 20 years and the results have been, if I’m being insanely generous, mixed at best.

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

#37

Post by AlecSchueler »

mnky9800n wrote: post #28
dcastonguay wrote: post #18

My current opinion is that AI is just a thing that is going to further amplify our existing tendencies (on a person-to-person basis). I've personally found it to be extremely beneficial in research, learning, and the category of "things that take time because of the stuff you have to mechanically go through and not because of the brainpower involved". I have been able to spend so much more time on things that I feel…

It fulfills steve jobs promise that a computer is a bicycle for your mind. It is crazy to me that all these poeple think they are going to lose their ability to think. If you didn't lose your ability to think to scrolling social media then you aren't going to lose it to AI. However, I think a lot of people lost their ability to think by scrolling social media and that is problematic. What people need to realize is th…

> If you didn't lose your ability to think to scrolling social media ...

Didn't we?

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

#38

Post by AndrewKemendo »

zdw wrote: post #21

For an example of where this already happened, look at the number of people who literally don't have a minor inkling of how to plan a route or navigate without a GPS and mapping software. Sure, having a real-time data source is nice for avoiding construction/traffic, and I'd use a real-time map, but going beyond that to be spoon fed your next action over and over leads to dependency.

But this is just proof that long ago we ceded

The ballad of John Henry was written in the 1840s

“Does the engine get rewarded for its steam?” That was the anti-automation line back then

If you gave up anything that was previously called “AI” we would not have computers, cars, airplanes or any type of technology whatsoever anywhere

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

#39

Post by IshKebab »

WillAdams wrote: post #31
zdw wrote: post #21

For an example of where this already happened, look at the number of people who literally don't have a minor inkling of how to plan a route or navigate without a GPS and mapping software. Sure, having a real-time data source is nice for avoiding construction/traffic, and I'd use a real-time map, but going beyond that to be spoon fed your next action over and over leads to dependency.

And for the societal cost of that see stories such as: https://www.npr.org/2011/07/26/137646147/the-gps-a-fatally-m... and for the way this mindset erodes values and skills: https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018...

The "societal cost" you linked literally says this happens with paper maps too. The cause is incorrect maps, not GPS.

(And of course, idiotic behaviour... but GPS doesn't cause that.)

Overall GPS has been an absolutely enormous benefit for society with barely any downside other than nostalgia for map reading.

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

#40

Post by foxglacier »

zdw wrote: post #21

For an example of where this already happened, look at the number of people who literally don't have a minor inkling of how to plan a route or navigate without a GPS and mapping software. Sure, having a real-time data source is nice for avoiding construction/traffic, and I'd use a real-time map, but going beyond that to be spoon fed your next action over and over leads to dependency.

It seems arbitrary to set the limit of how much pointless busywork we need as just the amount you're used to. Maybe maps are already dumbing it down too much and we should work out directions from a textual description of landmarks and compass bearings that's not specific to our route? In my opinion, dependency on turn-by-turn directions is fine because we do actually have the machines to do it for us. We're equally dependent on all sorts of useful things that free us to think about something actually useful that really can't be done for us. For example, consumer law means we can walk into a shop and buy something without negotiating a contract with each seller and working out all the ways we might get cheated.

Maybe the place to draw the line is different for each individual and depends on if they're really spending their freed-up time doing something useful or wasting it doing something unproductive and self-destructive.

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