How are you using new AI technology? Maybe you're only deploying things like ChatGPT to summarize long texts or draft up mindless emails. But what are you losing by taking these shortcuts? And is this tech taking away our ability to think?
Oh lawd, another ‘new technology xyz is making us dumb!’ Yeah we’ve only been saying that since the invention of writing, I’m sure it’s definitely true this time.
You’re being downvoted, but it’s true. Will it further enable lazy/dumb people to continue being lazy/dumb? Absolutely. But summarizing notes, generating boilerplate emails or script blocks, etc. was never deep, rigorous thinking to begin with. People literally said the same thing about handheld calculators, word processors, etc. Will some methods/techniques become esoteric as more and more mundane tasks are automated away? Almost certainly. Is that inherently a bad thing? Not in the majority of cases, in my opinion.
And before anyone chimes in with students abusing this tech and thus not becoming properly educated: All this means, is that various methods for gauging whether a student has achieved the baseline in any given subject will need to be implemented, e.g. proctored hand-written exams, homework structured in such a way that AI cannot easily do it, etc.
This has happened with every generation when a new technology changes our environment, and our way of defending ourselves is to reject it or exaggerate its flaws.
Because throughout history, many tools have existed, but over time they have fallen into disuse because too many people and/or there is a faster method that people use. But you can use that old tool.
This has also happened 100 times correctly to reject actually bad new technologies for every time it has been applied to the wrong technology that turned out to be actually useful.
Are you referring to projects that conceptualize something, but in the end it doesn’t come to fruition because it’s not possible due to lack of funding, lack of interest, it’s impossible, or there’s no technology required to complete it?
I am referring to technological “innovations” that never made it because while they sounded good as an idea they turned out to be bad/useless in practice and also those that someone thought of in a “wouldn’t it be great if we could do this” way but never really got a working implementation.
Flying cars might be a good, high profile example for the latter category. The former obviously has fewer famous examples because bad ideas that sound good at first are so abundant.
People said it about fucking writing; ‘If you don’t remember all this stuff yourself to pass it on you will be bad at remembering!’ No you won’t, you will just have more space to remember other more important shit.
How about this: should we go back to handwriting everything so we use our brains more, since the article states that it takes more brainpower to write than it does to type? Will this actually make us better or just make us have to engage in cognitive toil and fatigue ourselves performing menial tasks?
How is a society ever to improve if we do not leave behind the ways of the past? Humans cannot achieve certain things without the use of technology. LLMs are yet another tool. When abused any tool can become a weapon or a means to hurt ones self.
The goal is to reduce the amount of time spent on tasks that are not useful. Imagine if the human race never had to do dishes ever again. Imagine how that would create so much opportunity to focus on more important things. The important part is to actually focus on more important things.
At least in the US, society has transformed into a consumption-oriented model. We buy crap constantly, shop endlessly, watch shows, movies and listen to music and podcasts without end. How much of your day is spent creating something? Writing something? Building something? How much time do you spend seeking gratification?
We have been told that consumption is good and it works because consumption is indulgence whereas production is work. Until this paradigm changes, people will use ai in ways that are counterproductive rather than for their own self improvement or the improvement of society at large.
Imagine if the human race never had to do dishes ever again. Imagine how that would create so much opportunity to focus on more important things.
What are the most important things? Our dishwasher broke a few years ago. I anticipated frustration at the extra pressure on my evenings and having to waste time on dishes. But I immediately found washing the dishes to be a surprising improvement in quality of life. It opened up a space to focus on something very simple, to let my mind clear from other things, to pay attention to being careful with my handling of fragile things, and to feel connected to the material contents of my kitchen. It also felt good to see the whole meal process through using my own hands from start to end. My enjoyment of the evenings improved significantly, and I’d look forward to pausing and washing the dishes.
I had expected frustration at the “waste” of time, but I found a valuable pause in the rhythm of the day, and a few calm minutes when there was no point in worrying about anything else. Sometimes I am less purist about it and I listen to an audiobook while I wash up, and this has exposed me to books I would not have sat down and read because I would have felt like I had to keep rushing.
The same happened when my bicycle broke irreparably. A 10 minute cycle ride to work became a 30 minute walk. I found this to be a richer experience than cycling, and became intimately familiar with the neighbourhood in a way I had never been while zipping through it on the bike. The walk was a meditative experience of doing something simple for half an hour before work and half an hour afterwards. I would try different routes, going by the road where people would smile and say hello, or by the river to enjoy the sound of the water. My mind really perked up and I found myself becoming creative with photography and writing, and enjoying all kinds of sights, sounds and smells, plus just the pleasure of feeling my body settle into walking. My body felt better.
I would have thought walking was time I could have spent on more important things. Turned out walking was the entryway to some of the most important things. We seldom make a change that’s pure gain with no loss. Sometimes the losses are subtle but important. Sometimes our ideas of “more important things” are the source of much frustration, unhappiness and distraction. Looking back on my decades of life I think “use as much time as possible for important things” can become a mental prison.
This is a bad example because going from using a dishwasher to washing dishes is not a big leap in effort required. I doubt many of the people who get to do intellectual work in offices instead of doing back-breaking labor all day on a farm because of technology would agree that going back to that would improve their quality of life. Some of them would certainly find that to be a ‘richer experience’ too, if not for the lack of healthcare and air conditioning.
Yes, agreed, these are relatively minor levels of inconvenience. But I’m not judging anyone for using tech, just observing that it isn’t always so obvious that it’s just better to use it than not. In some cases, it’s obvious. At the dishwashers and LLMs end of things, less so.
Yep, three of them. Makes it all the more valuable when I can just do something simple for a bit. And maybe someone with less noise in the rest of their life wouldn’t find an enforced walk or washing dishes refreshing. I don’t mean to suggest that it’s wrong to use convenient tech, just that you can get a surprise when something you expected to be purely inconvenient turns out to be a good thing.
Did you get the impression from my comment that I was agreeing with the article? Because I’m very not, hence the ‘It’ll definitely be true this time’ which carries an implied ‘It wasn’t true any of those other times’, but the ‘definitely’ part is sarcasm. I have argued elsewhere in the post that all of this ‘xyz is making us dumb!’ shit is bunk.
Oh lawd, another ‘new technology xyz is making us dumb!’ Yeah we’ve only been saying that since the invention of writing, I’m sure it’s definitely true this time.
deleted by creator
The article literally addesses this, citing sources.
You’re being downvoted, but it’s true. Will it further enable lazy/dumb people to continue being lazy/dumb? Absolutely. But summarizing notes, generating boilerplate emails or script blocks, etc. was never deep, rigorous thinking to begin with. People literally said the same thing about handheld calculators, word processors, etc. Will some methods/techniques become esoteric as more and more mundane tasks are automated away? Almost certainly. Is that inherently a bad thing? Not in the majority of cases, in my opinion.
And before anyone chimes in with students abusing this tech and thus not becoming properly educated: All this means, is that various methods for gauging whether a student has achieved the baseline in any given subject will need to be implemented, e.g. proctored hand-written exams, homework structured in such a way that AI cannot easily do it, etc.
This has happened with every generation when a new technology changes our environment, and our way of defending ourselves is to reject it or exaggerate its flaws.
Because throughout history, many tools have existed, but over time they have fallen into disuse because too many people and/or there is a faster method that people use. But you can use that old tool.
This has also happened 100 times correctly to reject actually bad new technologies for every time it has been applied to the wrong technology that turned out to be actually useful.
Are you referring to projects that conceptualize something, but in the end it doesn’t come to fruition because it’s not possible due to lack of funding, lack of interest, it’s impossible, or there’s no technology required to complete it?
I am referring to technological “innovations” that never made it because while they sounded good as an idea they turned out to be bad/useless in practice and also those that someone thought of in a “wouldn’t it be great if we could do this” way but never really got a working implementation.
Flying cars might be a good, high profile example for the latter category. The former obviously has fewer famous examples because bad ideas that sound good at first are so abundant.
People said it about fucking writing; ‘If you don’t remember all this stuff yourself to pass it on you will be bad at remembering!’ No you won’t, you will just have more space to remember other more important shit.
Yeah, such pieces are easy clicks.
How about this: should we go back to handwriting everything so we use our brains more, since the article states that it takes more brainpower to write than it does to type? Will this actually make us better or just make us have to engage in cognitive toil and fatigue ourselves performing menial tasks?
How is a society ever to improve if we do not leave behind the ways of the past? Humans cannot achieve certain things without the use of technology. LLMs are yet another tool. When abused any tool can become a weapon or a means to hurt ones self.
The goal is to reduce the amount of time spent on tasks that are not useful. Imagine if the human race never had to do dishes ever again. Imagine how that would create so much opportunity to focus on more important things. The important part is to actually focus on more important things.
At least in the US, society has transformed into a consumption-oriented model. We buy crap constantly, shop endlessly, watch shows, movies and listen to music and podcasts without end. How much of your day is spent creating something? Writing something? Building something? How much time do you spend seeking gratification?
We have been told that consumption is good and it works because consumption is indulgence whereas production is work. Until this paradigm changes, people will use ai in ways that are counterproductive rather than for their own self improvement or the improvement of society at large.
What are the most important things? Our dishwasher broke a few years ago. I anticipated frustration at the extra pressure on my evenings and having to waste time on dishes. But I immediately found washing the dishes to be a surprising improvement in quality of life. It opened up a space to focus on something very simple, to let my mind clear from other things, to pay attention to being careful with my handling of fragile things, and to feel connected to the material contents of my kitchen. It also felt good to see the whole meal process through using my own hands from start to end. My enjoyment of the evenings improved significantly, and I’d look forward to pausing and washing the dishes.
I had expected frustration at the “waste” of time, but I found a valuable pause in the rhythm of the day, and a few calm minutes when there was no point in worrying about anything else. Sometimes I am less purist about it and I listen to an audiobook while I wash up, and this has exposed me to books I would not have sat down and read because I would have felt like I had to keep rushing.
The same happened when my bicycle broke irreparably. A 10 minute cycle ride to work became a 30 minute walk. I found this to be a richer experience than cycling, and became intimately familiar with the neighbourhood in a way I had never been while zipping through it on the bike. The walk was a meditative experience of doing something simple for half an hour before work and half an hour afterwards. I would try different routes, going by the road where people would smile and say hello, or by the river to enjoy the sound of the water. My mind really perked up and I found myself becoming creative with photography and writing, and enjoying all kinds of sights, sounds and smells, plus just the pleasure of feeling my body settle into walking. My body felt better.
I would have thought walking was time I could have spent on more important things. Turned out walking was the entryway to some of the most important things. We seldom make a change that’s pure gain with no loss. Sometimes the losses are subtle but important. Sometimes our ideas of “more important things” are the source of much frustration, unhappiness and distraction. Looking back on my decades of life I think “use as much time as possible for important things” can become a mental prison.
This is a bad example because going from using a dishwasher to washing dishes is not a big leap in effort required. I doubt many of the people who get to do intellectual work in offices instead of doing back-breaking labor all day on a farm because of technology would agree that going back to that would improve their quality of life. Some of them would certainly find that to be a ‘richer experience’ too, if not for the lack of healthcare and air conditioning.
Yes, agreed, these are relatively minor levels of inconvenience. But I’m not judging anyone for using tech, just observing that it isn’t always so obvious that it’s just better to use it than not. In some cases, it’s obvious. At the dishwashers and LLMs end of things, less so.
That’s fair, and not something I disagree with.
These words are all very pretty but let me ask you this: do you have kids?
Yep, three of them. Makes it all the more valuable when I can just do something simple for a bit. And maybe someone with less noise in the rest of their life wouldn’t find an enforced walk or washing dishes refreshing. I don’t mean to suggest that it’s wrong to use convenient tech, just that you can get a surprise when something you expected to be purely inconvenient turns out to be a good thing.
Did you get the impression from my comment that I was agreeing with the article? Because I’m very not, hence the ‘It’ll definitely be true this time’ which carries an implied ‘It wasn’t true any of those other times’, but the ‘definitely’ part is sarcasm. I have argued elsewhere in the post that all of this ‘xyz is making us dumb!’ shit is bunk.