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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

#531

Post by loup-vaillant »

DiffEq wrote: post #476
loup-vaillant wrote: post #316

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…

I think your viewpoint stems in a belief that there is only so much money to go around. Your view about a landlord taking money is kind of a micro view. I am a landlord…the house I rent I actually built. It is an asset that people are willing to give me money to use for a while…they get a place to live…IF I could not have ever rented it out I would have never built it…it would be a worthless piece of ground that nobo…

Assuming you paid your house-for-rent with your own money: that you worked for, as opposed to won at the lottery or from previous investments. In a sense, the family that is giving you rent money is only paying your work back… until that point where you get your full ROI (cost of the house + your own work + interest).

Beyond that, the only reason they give you more rent money is because you own the house. But you got your ROI so by now they have paid for the house. And yet it's not theirs, so they still have to pay you. And when they do, any additional money you get, you basically took from them. As for your son, who presumably did not work for the house at all, will definitely take money from people through that house. Just because he had the right dad.

Don't get me wrong, you investing for your son and securing his future is you being a good dad. You just can't wave away how the current system works: people who own stuff have the power to take money from people who don't.

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

#532

Post by arp242 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #341

Eh, the title here is one possible framing of a series of short tweets expressing his concerns about the potential impact of ChatGPT. I homeschooled. My sons had trouble learning to write and one really hated writing. I spent several years having him verbally explain material to me, having him learn grammar and vocabulary and other essentials from entertaining videos and graphic books and such. Thinking and writing d…

When people say "writing is thinking" what they're really talking about is not so much the "writing" or even "thinking" per se, but rather the "crystallizing your thoughts in to something concrete". Certainly my own thinking tends to be somewhat vague until I actually write it down, at which point I tend to get less sure of things because "oh, but what about this?" start to turn up, or I spot fallacies in my argument (the better reason to learn about fallacies is to spot them in your own arguments, not to bludgeon other people's arguments with).

In my experience writing is a very good way to do that, but if verbally works better for some then that's fine too.

In that sense I do agree with Graham that "I have some thoughts about X and I'll let ChatGPT take care of the details" is perhaps not entirely ideal.

All of this also applies to code by the way, in more or less the same way.

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

#533

Post by arp242 »

piokoch wrote: post #143

This is so not true... For the whole Middle Ages people rarely could write, but still there were lawyers (yes, lawyers who could not write), doctors, scientists, poets, merchants, mighty and clever kings (yes, there were kings who could not write). Middle Ages gave us crucial inventions that built European civilization (mills, windmills, agriculture inventions like three-field system, ships building technology and so…

I don't think it really matters if you do your PhD orally in a lecture or write a paper. The essence of it remains the same: you have to make your thinking concrete and form an argument that makes sense and is coherent. The exact form this takes isn't all that important, what is important is that you're the one doing the work instead of ChatGPT.

My other comment almost perfectly fits here too, so I won't repeat it in full[1], but only by doing the work yourself will you spot flaws and errors in your arguments; ChatGPT can't do that for you.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35913419

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

#534

Post by dalbasal »

nashashmi wrote: post #402
jiggywiggy wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, that only really happened in the reformation for Christianity. The romans were already pretty good at law.

I had judaism in mind.

I don't get it. You mean that old Judaism was pagan before scripture?

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

#535

Post by nashashmi »

dalbasal wrote: post #534
nashashmi wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had judaism in mind.

I don't get it. You mean that old Judaism was pagan before scripture?

Judaism preceded the pagan Roman kingdom. Judaism is a scriptural religion. Judaism gave rise to law as a study.

Non scriptural religions had evolving myths and folklore like Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. Those religions did not contribute to law like the prior comment mentions.

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

#536

Post by eimrine »

criddell wrote: post #206
bombolo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as most gpt writing, it's too long and has no substance

I sent the same prompt but asked it to be brief: > I love writing. It's a release for the madness in my head. The letters form sentences that transport you to another world or make you feel less alone. Writing can be tough, but it's worth it when you hold the finished piece in your hands. That’s… okay.

> The letters form sentences that transport you to another world or make you feel less alone.

This is about reading to be honest. The madness in writer's head is not letters, but rather some statements.

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

#537

Post by Tainnor »

alxhre wrote: post #529
simonw wrote: post #426

I'm a big fan of writing as a crucial skill for thinking. But I wonder if this concern of AI-assisted writing harming this will actually play out the way people think. Until quite recently, if you wanted to write music you had to learn an instrument first: needing to learn piano or guitar or similar to a point where you could compose your own music was a pretty big obstacle to getting started. Now, thanks to software…

I think your music example actually proves the original point. I would argue the average quality of (popular) music has declined in the wake of new technology. The lack of musical knowledge has led to undifferentiated, simplistic musicianship in modern songs. If artists were forced to learn to play an instrument they would ultimately produce more sophisticated work. The lower barrier to entry is a disservice to their…

I agree that much (though not all) of "mainstream" music has become shallow, and I also agree that people making less music on their own has contributed to this - although the latter, I think, has cultural factors too, and in societies where e.g. singing is more common, I think the appreciation for art is still a bit different.

But there's still tons of absolutely amazing music by skilled artists, you just have to venture off the mainstream path a bit. I don't know your exact tastes, so it's hard to recommend anything specific. But if you're saying "Bohemian Rhapsody", the genre of progressive rock is still very much alive, if niche.

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

#538

Post by aprilnya »

rcme wrote: post #14

Sometimes I wonder if I'm using the same ChatGPT as everyone else. I pay for GPT4 access in ChatGPT, and it is a really terrible writer. I also pay for Copilot, and I think a can count the number of times it has been helpful with one hand. I'm trying to get on this hype train, but I'm left with an empty feeling every time I try to seriously spend some time with these new tools.

half the time i tell copilot to do something the suggestion is just “return true” and there are no other suggestions

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

#539

Post by Paul-Craft »

futureshock wrote: post #186
rcme wrote: post #14

Sometimes I wonder if I'm using the same ChatGPT as everyone else. I pay for GPT4 access in ChatGPT, and it is a really terrible writer. I also pay for Copilot, and I think a can count the number of times it has been helpful with one hand. I'm trying to get on this hype train, but I'm left with an empty feeling every time I try to seriously spend some time with these new tools.

I feel like this is the bias of a very smart, highly educated, highly capable person. If you are already an excellent writer and coder, can take vast fields of knowledge and blossoming ideas and spit them out onto paper in skilled form with minimal anxiety, GPT probably does very little for you. Maybe you could see if you were missing something very obvious and average. I read for probably 8-12 hours a day. I write e…

I think you might be right. I can get GPT-4 to produce serviceable text on factual topics, if I prompt and guide it correctly. That's about it. Honestly, I'd very much prefer it if my actual dog could talk to me.

I'm not sure about "17 year old me struggling to write a short paper full of unoriginal ideas," but it sure could help me write that paper titled "Bullshit, bullshit, etc., etc., bullshit" that I always wanted an excuse to turn in for some college course or another. ;)

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

#540

Post by dctoedt »

dctoedt wrote: post #494
shadowtree wrote: post #443

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…

> The lawyer. Needs walls of text. Lawyer and law professor here: No, no , NO ! Wall-of-words text is a sign of a L.O.A.D. — a Lazy Or Arrogant Drafter. I teach contract drafting to 3Ls and stress The Two Great Rules of Readability: 1. SSSSP: Short, Simple, Single-Subject Paragraphs. https://toedtclassnotes.site44.com/Notes-on-Contract-Draftin... 2. BLUF: Bottom Line Up Front. https://toedtclassnotes.site44.com/Notes…

Forgot to add the business case for readability: Readable contracts get signed sooner (and, probably, inadvertently-breached less often).
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