391–400 of 529 posts
Interesting finding: not using the brain leads to a whack brain. Or: we had 10 people play tennis and ten watch a robot play tennis. The people who played tennis stimulated more muscles in their arm while playing tennis than the people who watched the robot play tennis.
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If you already are an engineer it frees you up to be an architect. If you aren't, then sure you'll be a PM with a lackluster team of engineers. LLMs can engineer small well defined functions / scripts rather well in my experience. Of course it helps to be able to understand what it outputs and prod it to engineer it just the way you want it. Still faster than me writing it from scratch, most of the time. And even if…
And if you are already an architect - you are likely planning to start a business It just feels like AI upskills everyone a little.
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Smartphones I think did the most damage. Used to be you had to memorize people's phone numbers. I'm sure other things like memorizing how to get from your house to someone else is also less cognitive when the GPS just tells you every time, instead of you busting out a map, and thinking about your route. I've often found that if I preview a route I'm supposed to take, and use Google Street Maps to physically view key…
About the phone numbers thing: I am now 35yo. Do I still remember the phone number of one of my best friends from primary school back then? Hell yeah, I do! These days though, I am struggling a bit with phone numbers, mostly because I don't even try. If the number is important, I will save it somewhere. Memorizing it? Nahhh... But sometimes my number brain still does that and it seems some weird pattern in the number…
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It won't turn most people into architects. It will turn them into PMs. The function of PMs is important but without engineers you are not going to build a sustainable system. And an LLM is not an engineer.
> It won't turn most people into architects. It will turn them into PMs That sounds awful. Every PM I've ever met, I did their job for them. They did nothing. And I've met some heavy hitter PMs with a lot of stripes and recommendations. The job of being a PM is over-exaggerated. It boils down to writing things down and bringing them up later. Something I ended up doing for them, because they didn't know enough to kno…
Meanwhile they're pulling the same or greater comp, working half the hours, and "drinking beers with important people" is an accepted part of their job. The status hierarchy you're describing where they suck isn't real. It's a useful fiction that keeps you grinding while they harvested your output.
Everyone becoming a PM is a good thing precisely because PMs don't work as hard. Wouldn't a job be more pleasant if you could meet expectations by lunch? Imagine how psychologically freeing that would be. Dreadful future my ass.
This seems to confirm my feeling when using AI too much. It's easy to get started, but I can feel my brain engaging less with the problem than I'm used to. It can form a barrier to real understanding, and keeps me out of my flow. I recently worked on something very complex I don't think I would have been able to tackle as quickly without AI; a hierarchical graph layout algorithm based on the Sugiyama framework, using…
Has anyone here switched roles from programmer to manager (of human programmers), and is it a similar feeling?
Interesting finding: not using the brain leads to a whack brain. Or: we had 10 people play tennis and ten watch a robot play tennis. The people who played tennis stimulated more muscles in their arm while playing tennis than the people who watched the robot play tennis.
It felt indeed that what the paper said is just: "If you are using a tool in order to make hard-work feel more easy... then your brain is not working as much"
This reminds me of the recurring pattern with every new medium: Socrates worried writing would destroy memory, Gutenberg's critics feared for contemplation, novels were "brain softening," TV was the "idiot box." That said, I'm not sure "they've always been wrong before" proves they're wrong now. Where I'm skeptical of this study: - 54 participants, only 18 in the critical 4th session - 4 months is barely enough time…
To be fair, I think this one is true. There's a lot of great stuff you can watch on TV, but I'd argue that TV is why many boomers are stuck in an echo chamber of their own beliefs (because CNN or fox news or whatever opinion-masquerading-as-journalism channel is always on in the background). This has of course been exacerbated by social media, but I can't think of many productive uses of TV other than sesame Street and other kids shows.
My friend works with people in their 20s. She recently brought up her struggles to do the math in her head for when to clock in/out for their lunches (30 minutes after an arbitrary time). The young coworker's response was "Oh I just put it into ChatGPT" The kids are using ChatGPT for simple maths...
Are you sure the coworker wasn't joking? Because if somebody confessed to me they struggle to add half an hour to a time point, my first reaction would definitely be to laugh it off.
My friend works with people in their 20s. She recently brought up her struggles to do the math in her head for when to clock in/out for their lunches (30 minutes after an arbitrary time). The young coworker's response was "Oh I just put it into ChatGPT" The kids are using ChatGPT for simple maths...
Eh. I have a math degree. Aced all the advanced maths. Was the only one to get an A in Diff Eq. I love math. I've never been able to do simple math in my head. I can't even remember the times tables half the time. Simple math isn't really problem solving.
It would've been faster to open up the calculator app and type in the numbers and get an instant response instead of opening up the ChatGPT app, typing in your question, waiting dozens of seconds, and getting a long response back.
My friend works with people in their 20s. She recently brought up her struggles to do the math in her head for when to clock in/out for their lunches (30 minutes after an arbitrary time). The young coworker's response was "Oh I just put it into ChatGPT" The kids are using ChatGPT for simple maths...
I've been using a Python prompt or the browser URL bar for simple maths for over a decade. I don't see much added value in doing arithmetic manually, humans really suck at it.