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When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

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Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#481
post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which persona is Bezos? Accountant?

Probably the lawyer. At Amazon they’re somewhat known for the their six-page essay.

Yeah but the weekly WBR where the directors ask what a cell means on the DataNet report but the data isnt' sussed out so the L5 Data science guy that reports to the L7 PMT will spend the next week changing SQL to produce that requested view for the next week WBR.

Many L6 promos over the years went out to folks who could quickly and accurately build WBR decks that gave L8s the visibility they wanted.

So maybe Bezos is the lawyer, and all the directors are accountants.

Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is this will rob a whole generation of that learning. To struggle to learn to write, code, and all that is how you become a professional. A lot of people will never develop these skills, and the chasm between the talented and untalented will only grow.

You are wrong. LLMs are the single biggest advance in mass learning since the printed book. They are infinitely patient and can be reprogrammed, or repurposed with three sentences. Debate partner, editor, quiz master, literally anything. Every new tool can be abused , of course we can't structure education the same, but we should always be re-evaluating our methods and techniques in the face of new technology and kno…

Which is worse, having no debate partner, editor, or quiz master? Or a debate partner who insists they're right when they're wrong, an editor who injects false references and made-up citations, and a quiz master whose accuracy is essentially random?

Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#483
I agree in the same sense that by using a calculator you lose the ability to think quantitatively.

We build tools and move up the stack. Were not going to lose the ability to think. The types of thinking we do change to better serve our needs. Needs change.

Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#484
post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense but you are almost certainly using it wrong. Consider the following: 1. Use it when you know how to do something but don't want to. 2. Use it when you don't know something, and don't know how to find the answer. 3. Never trust. Verify. Clearly, this means the examples that impress others will often not impress you.

It’s very difficult for me to wrap my head around people that aren’t blown away by both this and generative image AIs, and I tend to be in the skeptical side when it comes to fancy tech adoption.

The people who are least impressed by GPT seem to be the ones who've never tried to build anything similar, even a text adventure game.

Industry outsiders also tend to take ML for granted, even when the 'experts' can see it's completely inappropriate. (My GF, a few years ago: "Why do we still need judges and juries? Can't computers judge cases and author legal opinions?" Me, at the time: "LOL, no, that would be ridiculous, and here's why..." Me, today: "Uh, about that argument we were having...")

Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are able to entertain millions of people around the globe while doing it and some build incredible wealth at the same time. I think you meant hoard incredible wealth? There's a limit to how much wealth you can actually create with immaterial entertainment alone. Even a best seller book: it takes time to read, so while it provides value to millions of readers, it also removes value in the form of opportunity co…

What makes a chair more valuable to society than entertainment?

You can't rest your legs on an entertainment

Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#487

Just for one persona. Good old Peter Drucker formalized the personas in his advice to new employees to figure out how their bosses consumed information: 1 - The lawyer. Needs walls of text. 2 - The architect. Needs diagrams, visuals. 3 - The accountant. Needs numbers, spreadsheets. 4 - The actor. Needs a conversation, verbal. It's a generalization, of course, but I have applied this pattern successfully. The core bit…

Here are some guesses at popular CEOs.

LAWYERS - needs walls of text

Jeff Bezos is known for his long-term thinking and his annual letters to shareholders are famous for their extensive detail and length.

Mark Zuckerberg is known for his long-term vision and often communicates his ideas in lengthy blog posts and public statements.

ACCOUNTANTS - needs numbers, spreadsheets

Sundar Pichai has an engineering background and tends to rely on data and analysis in decision-making.

Satya Nadella has an engineering background and has emphasized the importance of data-driven decision-making at Microsoft.

Warren Buffett is famous for his value investing approach, which emphasizes analyzing financial statements and data to identify undervalued companies.

ARCHITECTS - needs diagrams, visuals

Tim Cook is known for his attention to design and user experience, and Apple's keynotes and product launches often feature detailed visuals and product demonstrations.

Elon Musk frequently communicates his ideas through visually compelling presentations, and is known for his ambitious plans for space exploration and sustainable energy.

ACTORS - needs a conversation, verbal

Mark Cuban is known for his outgoing and talkative personality. He often engages in conversations with fans and customers on social media and in public appearances, and is very comfortable in front of the camera.

Richard Branson is known for his flamboyant and charismatic personality. He often appears in public events and media interviews, and is known for his storytelling and ability to captivate audiences with his words.

Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#488

Writing is thinking. You do it as much for yourself as you do your readers and having to put effort into it is how you realize gains. Like strength training. Use tools, of course, but don't let them do the hard part for you. It'd be like buying a robot to go to the gym and move weights up and down — sorta misses the point. (Before I get the usual sorts of replies: I'm not talking about writing boilerplate or marketin…

Writing is a form of thinking. It only takes one or two manic episodes to realize that they're not always super correlated.

Don't even need manic episodes to understand this (and if you went through one I'm terribly sorry, they can be such cruel events people disregard), music is a good example. You can be so profoundly moved by a song in an entirely different language you don't understand not because of writing, but because of what the person conveys through sound. Instruments as another example of this.

What our thoughts are made up of visuals (shapes, lights), feelings, and sounds. Not words, however words are convenient shortcuts to communication so we use them a lot. This is part of why we continue trying to understand animals. It's also why multilingual people will have these jarring stops in speaking/writing, and struggle to connect those visuals/feelings/sounds in their mind to the expression (speaking/writing).

It's literally the reason that "love" is so elusive to us. Despite numerous people trying their best over centuries to express it in writing, music, art, etc. it's still this profound feeling we feel has endless potential. We know it's just brain signals, and yet it continues to be deeply embedded in our thoughts.

Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#489
post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people do not "make" money (i.e. create value), how do you explain the increase in the standard of living over the last 100 years?

> how do you explain the increase in the standard of living over the last 100 years? https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption That will catch up to us. It already has, in many parts of the world, and it's not looking like it'll get better soon. And let's not forget, it's not just people who have paid the price. > The contemporary rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher…

You only see the curves go upward. But if you look very detailed, you see that a plateau is coming. A downward trend will follow.

When the going gets tough...

About the inequality : it is really bad, but hundreds years ago, the poor were starving because of lack of food, in stark contrast with landlords and knights and kings.

Today an equal amount of or more, people die from too much food than of too little.

My point is, you need to take a step back and look from a bit more distance to see the real trend. Things are bad now, because we are at a maximum.

Re: When you lose the ability to write, you also lose some of your ability to think

#490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall a study whose result said that beginners improve faster when they're told the solutions right away, and experts improve faster when they're given time to figure things on their own. Struggling as a learning tool is important, but there's a good chance the fastest path to expertise is to start with examples of how to do it, and delay that struggle a bit. What you don't want is to keep the crutch forever and n…

It would be trivial to configure multiple LLMs to track a student's progress in real time and ensure the optimal difficulty gradient for maximum learning. It could even detect when you should go outside and play. The rejection of LLMs for education by otherwise intelligent people is disheartening.

Indeed I believe the LLMs are an excellent tool to education. Especially because you can ask it questions until you understand.

Also, some things are not need to be known anymore, like phone numbers or the inner working of a car. There are plenty of things to learn even if automation made some of knowledge beneign.

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