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Bored of It

paulrobertlloyd.com

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Re: Bored of It

#311

Post by crazygringo »

spencerflem wrote: post #301
crazygringo wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about learning practical skills like research and teaching, or laboratory skills. I'm talking about the factual knowledge. Academia is built on open publishing. Do you disagree? And the things I'm looking up just can't be found in Google or a dictionary. It's something defined in some random paper from 1987, further developed by someone else in 1998, that the author didn't cite.

And something that lead you to that paper would be wonderful but instead you have been disconnected from the social side of scholarship and forced to take the AI "at its word". I've also seen AI just completely make up nonsense out of nowhere as recently as last week.

Huh? Nobody's forcing me to "take the AI at its word". It's the easiest thing to verify.

And I've got enough of the social side of scholarship already. Professors don't need me emailing them with questions, and I don't need to wait days for replies that may or may not come.

Re: Bored of It

#312

Post by pj_mukh »

latexr wrote: post #17

> The best minds of my generation I’m tired of that line. I remember first seeing it on “the best minds of our generation being employed to sell you ads”. Making a computer go brrr doesn’t qualify anyone for a “best mind”. I’d hope a “best mind” would be, above all, empathetic. Concerned about the well being of their fellow humans. Philosophical about the state of the world. Patient. Curious. Wise and not just smart.…

"would be, above all, empathetic. Concerned about the well being of their fellow humans."

I'm tired of this line. We are animals first and foremost. Complicated animals, but animals nonetheless. We will never consistently be this. The best of us will try but most of us will animalistically react to the incentives in front of us in selfish ways.

We are better of thinking of systems and the incentives they create than hopelessly waiting for us to become not animals. Aligning good goals with personal profit is the name of the game.

Re: Bored of It

#313

Post by xnx »

eddd-ddde wrote: post #162
mapt wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On that specific quote - I feel like this is offensive on more than one level. The waste of our best minds... sure. Fine. But - "to sell you ads." Marketting has the dubious distinction of being one area of human endeavor where technological advances serve mostly to make your life worse, make your mind less focused, make your wallet more empty. The spherical-cow "ideal" 100% efficient perfect marketing campaign/tacti…

I disagree. The spherical cow of marketing is a system that connects consumers with EXACTLY what they are looking for. What you are describing is the capitalist spherical cow.

Helping customers find products and services to their needs is a good and worthwhile goal. Unfortunately, the typical role of marketing is to convince people that they have problems that only the marketed product can fix.

Re: Bored of It

#314

Post by miltonlost »

bmc7505 wrote: post #235
glasshug wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won’t argue with it being overdone, but it’s in reference to Ginsberg. Not necessarily complimentary. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl

Gingsberg stole it from Yeats — “the best lack all conviction…” / “the best minds of my generation…” — many similar verses, e.g., “what rough beast…” / “what sphinx of cement…” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-comi...

Those aren't nearly close enough to be considered stolen. Possibly allusions (which is not stealing), but even then, the only similarity of the bests is "The best" usage. Nothing about the rest of the lines, or before, are similar enough to be "stolen" (potentially the Ginsberg troping Yeat's "full of passionate intensity" of the worst into his best's "madness, starving hysterical", but that too is allusion, not stealing).

The best lack all conviction, while the worst // Are full of passionate intensity.

vs

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, // dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

How is this stealing in any form?

Re: Bored of It

#315

Post by spencerflem »

slumberlust wrote: post #300
spencerflem wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketing is so rarely for a "novel" thing. The biggest spender is CocaCola, how much do we still need to know about them?

Did you know the invented modern santa branding? Prior to that he was more a vagabond/homeless type and much much less jolly.

I wasn't trying to say the contents of the ads aren't novel- just that what they're selling very often isn't.

Its also so very rarely factual - the idea is more for you to believe that 'Disney Land is an important milestone for all happy families'. Or 'Stella Artois is the type of beer a sexy intellectual orders - that's you right?'

I completely believe that ads are a huge part of our culture.

Re: Bored of It

#316

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

anonymars wrote: post #267
spencerflem wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the argument is more about whether someone involved in hostile behavior deserves to be called a "best mind" compared to someone worse at math but better at empathy. Fwiw I kinda agree with both of you. Don't really know how to square it

I'd say it's something like "a squandering of potential"

I think it’s more nuances, it’s saying that our definition of potential, best, etc, doesn’t weigh empathy for our fellow humans heavily enough. It’s an argument to flip that instead of our brightest minds being spent on ads, to instead say we are not rewarding our brightest minds at all but our most mercenary ones.

Re: Bored of It

#317

Post by spencerflem »

crazygringo wrote: post #311
spencerflem wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And something that lead you to that paper would be wonderful but instead you have been disconnected from the social side of scholarship and forced to take the AI "at its word". I've also seen AI just completely make up nonsense out of nowhere as recently as last week.

Huh? Nobody's forcing me to "take the AI at its word". It's the easiest thing to verify. And I've got enough of the social side of scholarship already. Professors don't need me emailing them with questions, and I don't need to wait days for replies that may or may not come.

How do you verify it or connect it with other papers if it gives you a summary instead of linking to the paper itself?

Re: Bored of It

#318

Post by threetonesun »

latexr wrote: post #17

> The best minds of my generation I’m tired of that line. I remember first seeing it on “the best minds of our generation being employed to sell you ads”. Making a computer go brrr doesn’t qualify anyone for a “best mind”. I’d hope a “best mind” would be, above all, empathetic. Concerned about the well being of their fellow humans. Philosophical about the state of the world. Patient. Curious. Wise and not just smart.…

I don't think that's how it's meant to be read, if you consider it in the context of the original quote, it's about good and empathetic minds going to waste because of the demands of society. We put so much social and economic capital into tech that it's better to push five lines of code for Facebook than be a doctor, which are the "good minds going to waste".

Re: Bored of It

#319

Post by john-h-k »

elicksaur wrote: post #288
hersko wrote: post #223

This is insane. We have created the greatest tool in human history and people are complaining. I can use it to help me code, fix modeling issues as I learn CAD, help me troubleshoot the issues in my two-stroke leafblower engine and can consistently walk me through complex leetcode algorithms. It literally knows everything and people still complain.

It literally knows nothing. It is incapable of knowledge. I’m bored of it.

Maybe the tool knows nothing. But it allows me to learn niche things often much faster than via a web browser. So it has to value for me.

I think there’s lot of dangers and problems with it and frankly I’d probably be happier if it was never invented. But even then I can still see the value it has

Re: Bored of It

#320

Post by cloogshicer »

pj_mukh wrote: post #312
latexr wrote: post #17

> The best minds of my generation I’m tired of that line. I remember first seeing it on “the best minds of our generation being employed to sell you ads”. Making a computer go brrr doesn’t qualify anyone for a “best mind”. I’d hope a “best mind” would be, above all, empathetic. Concerned about the well being of their fellow humans. Philosophical about the state of the world. Patient. Curious. Wise and not just smart.…

"would be, above all, empathetic. Concerned about the well being of their fellow humans." I'm tired of this line. We are animals first and foremost. Complicated animals, but animals nonetheless. We will never consistently be this. The best of us will try but most of us will animalistically react to the incentives in front of us in selfish ways. We are better of thinking of systems and the incentives they create than…

Except our superior ability to collaborate is arguably our strongest asset.
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