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Thoughts on thinking

dcurt.is

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Re: Thoughts on thinking

#391

Post by techno_tsar »

whyage wrote: post #278
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…

> The aim of our creation is communication and mutual-transformation That's a myopic point of view. Personal transformation is as significant, if not more. Production-oriented pastimes like painting, gardening, or organizing your stamp collection can do wonders for the mind. Their goals can be remaining sane in this crazy world, not producing the best painting ever, growing conversation-starting plants, or showing of…

I was thinking about how the point of reading isn't to literally 'internalize' what you've read. When you're engrossed in a piece of literature, you don't remember the specifics of the last page you read. What's more important is what the book is doing to your mind as you read -- it triggers a set of processes that force you to imagine and therefore form connections that you haven't made before, even if subtle and unrelated to the content of the book.

It's the same with writing. Writing isn't just a way to produce a good piece of writing, it's what the process of writing does to your brain as you think aloud, connecting words and sentences together. The same with painting, gardening, and organizing your stamp collection. The final 'product' isn't actually important. The significance lies in the process of immersion from the creator and the people who witness it.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#392

Post by techno_tsar »

emporas wrote: post #388
bccdee wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be a mistake to take the banality of current LLM outputs and extrapolate that into the future. Imagine a chef, congenitally unable to taste or smell food, who has nevertheless studied a million recipes. Can they reproduce existing recipes? Sure, if they follow the instructions perfectly. Can they improvise original recipes? I doubt it. Judging by the instructions alone, the recipes they invent may be indis…

Head over to groq.com, use the qwen-qwq-32b model, and take these examples [1] and put them at the start before the prompt. After that use the following command: write chapter 1 for a new Novel in Progress, take inspiration from the example Novel but DO NOT Repeat Example. Add vivid imagery, in a dark comedy style. dial up the humor and irony and use first person narration. Fracture sentences and emphasize the unusua…

This is unreadable slop.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#393

Post by BrawnyBadger53 »

GeoAtreides wrote: post #312
BobbyTables2 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, states now use AI to grade student essays in standardized tests. English teachers even recommend grammarly.. Students are given a “prompt” for writing. I wish other schools had the conviction you describe…

> states now use AI to grade student essays in standardized tests. citation needed

This was already happening a decade ago lol. Happened to me at least.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#394

Post by Anamon »

nicbou wrote: post #260

I run an informative website for a living. If the trend continues, I will lose my job to AI trained on my content. I get the feeling of pointlessness, but not because AI is making me obsolete. AI still needs me, because it still needs human beings to experience the real world and report on it. It need to copy someone's homework. It just destroys the economics of doing that homework. But there is not the faintest chan…

The way forward seems to be radically restrictive licensing and having a lawyer's phone number at hand.

I used to be a strong critic of copyright laws and fondly remember when the Internet promised to be a world of freely flowing information. These days, I think the best bet for the net to survive would be if we found a way to sue every AI company into trillions of debt and make sure that nobody ever dares freeload off the work of others, ever again.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#395

Post by emporas »

techno_tsar wrote: post #392
emporas wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Head over to groq.com, use the qwen-qwq-32b model, and take these examples [1] and put them at the start before the prompt. After that use the following command: write chapter 1 for a new Novel in Progress, take inspiration from the example Novel but DO NOT Repeat Example. Add vivid imagery, in a dark comedy style. dial up the humor and irony and use first person narration. Fracture sentences and emphasize the unusua…

This is unreadable slop.

Depending on the story, the examples have to be adjusted. But of course, logical reasoning from humans cannot be replicated just like that, by the machines.

The real question is this: Suppose a person was great at reasoning the last 100 years, but with zero knowledge. That person might not attended any school, almost illiterate. But his reasoning is top notch. I don't know if you are familiar with Sultan Khan [1] for example.

With no formal training to absorb a lot of knowledge, that person is totally economically crashed. There is no chance of being competitive at anything, not involving muscles anyway. Now suppose that this person can complement his lack of knowledge with a magical knowledge machine. Suddenly he is ahead of a competition, involving people with 10 Phds, or doctors with 30 years of experience.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultan_Khan_(chess_player)

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#396

Post by Grosvenor »

mistercow wrote: post #376
gofreddygo wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you put my thoughts into words I couldn't. Any school's #1 job is to motivate learning. Schools clearly suck at this. LLMs are a fascinating effective learning tool. early learning would be better off embracing it as such. i imagine a combination of a video of a good tutor explaining a concept followed up with an llm to quiz and explain the concept seems far better than what we have today.

I think we need to find a way to teach without grades. That is, we do know how to teach without grades at younger levels, and many schools do it successfully. The problem is that eventually you need to measure for placement, and Goodhart’s Law kicks in and destroys the enjoyment of learning. It’s very hard to be intrinsically motivated when the external pressure dominates. The fact that “study for the test” is basica…

> The problem is that eventually you need to measure for placement Why do you need to be "placed"? I know the answer - resources.

But why can't each individual have sort of their own bespoke governess tutoring them all through school? Pay Gilbert Strang a million dollars to do a 32 week course in LinAlg. Yes I know a normal course is shorter, expand it to cover everything in exquisite detail, so even I can keep up. Alan Kay, Donald Knuth, and John Carmack can teach computer science. Continue on for each subject.

Then let students go as fast as they want. I'd have finished some subjects of HS by the time I was in 9th grade, and others I might still be trying. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Where you'd still need to be "placed" is social development. Which I think should actually be a subject.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#397

Post by abathologist »

nthingtohide wrote: post #372
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…

I think this is nothing but how applied science realtime feedback loops should work. Earlier we used to study only planets, atoms and bacteria, now systems are studying us and guiding us to best outcomes.

The surrender is largely voluntary, and is especially enabled by those who think "the systems" somehow know the "best outcomes".

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#398

Post by abathologist »

whyage wrote: post #278
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…

> The aim of our creation is communication and mutual-transformation That's a myopic point of view. Personal transformation is as significant, if not more. Production-oriented pastimes like painting, gardening, or organizing your stamp collection can do wonders for the mind. Their goals can be remaining sane in this crazy world, not producing the best painting ever, growing conversation-starting plants, or showing of…

> Personal transformation is as significant, if not more

I would include personal transformation. I think it should be clear that my point is not against "production-oriented pastimes" in any way.

> It's about doing for the sake of being.

Yea, this is totally aligned with my view too. I'd just note that being is not separable from becoming and changing.

I'm afraid you either didn't read me well, or I didn't write my intended sense well, or both. But I think we are pretty much in agreement in any case, assuming I understand what you've written here :D

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#399

Post by bartread »

bsenftner wrote: post #375
bartread wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but when that audience is a weak communicator the entire process disintegrates. That is, what I suspect is happening with the blog post author. That’s a pretty rude and disrespectful take on this piece, don’t you think? How can you read a piece that is so well articulated then turn around and, apparently unironically, suggest the author isn’t a good communicator? How can you invalidate the author’s experience witho…

If you are worried about being rude when dealing with misunderstandings, you waste a lot of time coddling your audience. The author describes their highly emotional inability to effectively communicate with an LLM, I point out the issue is a lack of communications skill, and you call that as rude? How else to describe this issue? Effective communications and using LLMs is the issue. The piece is not that well written…

A big part of having good communication skills is knowing your audience. HN is a forum for people do discuss stories, not a forum for prompting LLMs. Moreover that discussion is supposed to be civil. You might see that civility as a waste of time but, if you do, you're likely to lose your audience, and that is a failure of communication.

Similarly, the intended audience for the author's post is people, not LLMs. So it doesn't really matter whether an LLM would struggle to properly understand and provide a useful response to it because I, as a human being, did understand the perspective, and found it both interesting and thought provoking.

You don't know anything at all about how the author uses an LLM, and nor do I. So when you draw a direct line between software engineers in general being "weak communicators" and the post author being a weak communicator, specifically with LLMs, you are jumping to a conclusion that is not supported by the evidence we can actually see.

Re: Thoughts on thinking

#400

Post by bartread »

ajuc wrote: post #389
bartread wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).…

It's not a loop. It's the main() function. The loop is driven by the system and that makes a lot of difference.

> It's not a loop. It's the main() function.

No it isn't. I regularly use my car to travel to multiple destinations in a single "session".

The reason I use GPS is because the apps built on top of it often know about traffic issues along the way - even those that have recently developed - as well as normal patterns of traffic flow of which I may not be aware, or may only have a tenuous grasp of (and don't want to waste a lot of time studying).

But be in no doubt, when the machine creates a route for me it is very much doing what I tell it to do, not the other way around. I am in control at all times and will sometimes deviate from the prescribed route or choose a different destination along the way (e.g., if I've forgotten an errand I need to run that I remember and which could be conveniently achieved).

I just don't buy this argument that the car or the GPS system is the one in control, because it's simply not the case.

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