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

Thoughts on thinking

dcurt.is

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 459 posts

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#351

Post by drakonka »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #345
drakonka wrote: post #337

This rings true for me. I still write a lot on my personal blog and still use writing as a way to process and solidify my learnings, but as I outsource more to LLMs during the process of writing (e.g., helping me find a source or something, or have it explain a topic to me instead of googling for an answer from multiple channels), I can feel my brain getting more sluggish. I think this is impacting not just my creati…

Think of weightlifting. It helps build muscle. You can use a crane-lift to lift a lot more weight a lot faster. Is weightlifting now pointless? You'll never be able to compete with a crane-lift! It'll always be faster and won't get tired. Writing is an exercise that helps thinking and reasoning about a subject. Delegating it to an LLM is the same as delegating it to another person who writes faster and knows the subj…

I'm not sure if you meant to reply to someone else or if we're just agreeing with each other? I already said "I still write a lot on my personal blog and still use writing as a way to process and solidify my learnings". So I already understand and agree that writing itself is a worthwhile exercise.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#352

Post by BlueTemplar »

don_neufeld wrote: post #176
hammock wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m very glad my kid’s school has hardcore banned them. What does that mean, I’m curious? The schools and university I grew up in had a “single-sanction honor code” which meant if you were caught lying or cheating even once you would be expelled. And you signed the honor code at the top of every test. My more progressive friends at other schools who didn’t have an honor code happily poo-pooed it as a repugnantly ha…

The school has an academic honestly policy which explicitly bans it, under “Cheating”, which includes: “Falsifying or inventing any academic work, including the use of AI (ChatGPT, etc)” Additionally, as mentioned, the school is taking actions to change how work is done to ensure students are actually doing their own work - such as requiring written assignments be completed during class time, or giving homework on ph…

Physical paper isn't going to save them.

(Also, typing was only appropriate for only some classes anyway.)

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#353

Post by gibbitz »

gibbitz wrote: post #111
curl-up wrote: post #31

> The fun has been sucked out of the process of creation because nothing I make organically can compete with what AI already produces—or soon will. So the fun, all along, was not in the process of creation itself, but in the fact that the creator could somehow feel superior to others not being able to create? I find this to be a very unhealthy relationship to creativity. My mixer can mix dough better than I can, but…

I think the point is that part of the value of a work of art to this point is the effort or lack of effort involved in its creation. Evidence of effort has traditionally been a sign of the quality of thought put into a work as a product of time spent in its creation. LLMs short circuit this instinct in evaluation making some think works generated by AI are better than they are while simultaneously making those who cr…

To put it another way: if we made a machine that could instantly create a baby, how would that effect the notion of motherhood? Sure children are adopted or born to surrogacy but the connection formed during gestation and that time itself is a huge part of our notion of the connection between mother and child. Being an Artist is the same thing, an identity bred from gestation proved by the ends.

Before the rise of Western culture, ancient cultures didn't attribute an artist to a work. Think Ancient Greece or Egypt. These cultures still produced Art because the culture valued it, but in society these creators were seen as tradesmen or they were slaves. AI used in this way both reduces cultural value and removes or reduces the social status of the creator.

I find it telling that LLMs are quite adept at mash-ups and decisions based on data analysis which in my experience is what most business managers do. Why are we not using AI to replace worthless middle management? After all they are lower skilled and higher paid than many developers. I'd argue that anyone who thinks you can replace a job with AI is not doing that job as a career. AI devs who think LLM can replace Java web developers are not Java web developers. Internet trolls who think LLM can replace Artists are not Artists. I think this moment we're in is revealing that we've become so siloed that we have lost our curiosity about each other and cultural history. It's frightening to see how we're changing our culture to accommodate a technology at the expense of people and just how blase we are about it.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#354

Post by bsenftner »

cameldrv wrote: post #275
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…

I've personally noticed this as a big trend. For example, I had become more and more reliant on my GPS in the car. I've not really been the outer control loop of the vehicle. An automated system tells me what to do. I recently got a running watch. It suggests workouts that will help me improve my speed (which honestly I don't even care about!). If you turn it on it will blare at you if you're going too fast or too sl…

More people need to read Marshall Brain's book "Manna"; the main character's thoughts examine and put to bed the majority of the sophomore thinking surrounding AI and it's impacts on civilization. Plus, it is one of the rare balanced views with both very positive and very negative outcomes simultaneously coexisting.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#355

Post by bsenftner »

bsenftner wrote: post #354
cameldrv wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've personally noticed this as a big trend. For example, I had become more and more reliant on my GPS in the car. I've not really been the outer control loop of the vehicle. An automated system tells me what to do. I recently got a running watch. It suggests workouts that will help me improve my speed (which honestly I don't even care about!). If you turn it on it will blare at you if you're going too fast or too sl…

More people need to read Marshall Brain's book "Manna"; the main character's thoughts examine and put to bed the majority of the sophomore thinking surrounding AI and it's impacts on civilization. Plus, it is one of the rare balanced views with both very positive and very negative outcomes simultaneously coexisting.

https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#356

Post by layer8 »

johnisgood wrote: post #292
layer8 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: “The irony is that I now know more than I ever would have before AI. But I feel slightly dumber. A bit more dull. LLMs give me finished thoughts, polished and convincing, but none of the intellectual growth that comes from developing them myself. The output from AI answers questions. It teaches me facts. But it doesn’t really help me know anything new.” I think the thesis is that with AI there is le…

I know, that is why you need the desire, the will to learn. I have been using LLMs for this, so I know it is possible. I understand what you are saying though, and it is indeed a sad state of affairs, but then again, this was the case due to search engines, Wikipedia, and so forth, long before LLMs. Again, you can truly learn a lot using LLMs, but you have to approach it properly. It does not have to be just "facts",…

Yes, but previously you didn’t need the desire that much, because you were more forced to it, there was no easy way. The fact that now you need that internal motivation means that it will happen less, where previously it happened by default.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#357

Post by bartread »

cameldrv wrote: post #275
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…

I've personally noticed this as a big trend. For example, I had become more and more reliant on my GPS in the car. I've not really been the outer control loop of the vehicle. An automated system tells me what to do. I recently got a running watch. It suggests workouts that will help me improve my speed (which honestly I don't even care about!). If you turn it on it will blare at you if you're going too fast or too sl…

> I've not really been the outer control loop of the vehicle. An automated system tells me what to do.

That’s not really true, is it? Who tells the GPS where you’d like to go? You, I imagine. You don’t just follow GPS instructions unless you’ve first told it where you’d like to go. And, indeed, unless you tell it, it won’t give you any instructions (though it might suggest common destinations for you to choose from).

You are still the outer control loop of the vehicle: you’re just thinking at the wrong level of abstraction, or thinking of the wrong loop as the outer loop.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#358

Post by mayas_ »

for better or for worse gen ai has is fundamentally changing how ideas are expressed and shared

afaic it's a net positive. i've always been lazy on writing down/expressing my thoughts and gen ai feels exactly like the missing piece.

i'm able to "vibe write" my ideas into reality. the process is still messy but exciting.

i've never been this excited about the future since my childhood

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#359

Post by bsenftner »

I believe the author is awash in a sea they do not understand, and that is the cause of their discomfort. When they describe their ideas being fully realized by LLMs, are they really, or just appearing as such because the words and terms arrive in a similar and expected manner as their prompt?

Performing any type of intellectual philosophic or exploratory work with LLMs is extremely subtle, largely because you nor they know what you are seeking, and the discovery process with LLMs is not writing prompts and varying one's prompts in trial manners to hopefully get "something else, something better" Very few seem to be realizing the mirror aspects embodied within LLMs: they will mirror you back, and if you are unaware of this, you may not be getting the replies you really seek, you're receiving "comfort replies" and replies mirroring your metadata (style, nuance) more than the factual logic of your requests, if any factual requests are made.

There is an entire body of work, multiple careers worth of human effort, to document the new subtle logical keys to working with LLMs. These are new logical constructs that have never existed before, not even fictionally, not realized as they are now, with all the implications and details bare, in our faces, yet completely misunderstood as people attempt old imperative methods that will not work with with this new entity with completely different characteristics than anything reality has any experience.

A major issue with getting developers to effectively use LLMs is the fact that many developers are weak to terrible communicators themselves. LLMs are fantastic communicators, who will mirror their audience in an attempt to be better understood, but when that audience is a weak communicator the entire process disintegrates. That is, what I suspect is happening with the blog post author. An inability to be discriminate in their language to the degree they parcel out the easy immediate sophomore level replies, and then arrive at a context within the LLM's capacity that is the integrity of context they seek, but that requires them to meet that intellectually and linguistically or that LLM context is destroyed. So subtle.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#360

Post by guythedudebro »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #318
boppo1 wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When you use any social media, you're not really choosing what you're looking at. You just scroll and the site decides what you're going to look at next. Not necessarily. I'm into a very particular sort of painting and I have been totalitarian with Instagram about showing me that content and not other stuff. It works splendidly as long as I'm consistent. Thanks to Instagram, I have been introduced to tons of painter…

> I'm into a very particular sort of painting Can you share some of your favourites that you follow? This sounds interesting.

Furries
Post reply on HN