7 ms·

I can’t believe riding a horse and carriage wouldn’t make you better at riding a horse. Sure a horserider wouldn’t want to practice the wrong way, but anyone el

by Frummy 1y ago

I can’t believe riding a horse and carriage wouldn’t make you better at riding a horse. Sure a horserider wouldn’t want to practice the wrong way, but anyone else just wants to get somewhere

apsurd 1y ago
i didn't read the article but come on riding a horse to get to a destination is not remotely similar to writing an essay. if you say it's a means to an end - to what a good grade? - we've lost the plot long ago. writing is for thinking.
- Frummy 1y ago
  I'm making an analogy as to the type of skill it is, so yes, means to an end. I wouldn't mean an apathetic student jumping through bureaucratic educational hoops and requirements, but perhaps a selfdriven person wanting to get something done. What I'm saying is that yes writing essays is one skill and if it's your goal to write essays then obviously not doing it yourself entirely will make you worse than otherwise. But I'm expanding a bit beyond the paper saying that yes the brain won't grow for this specific skill because it's actually a different skill. Thinking can be done in lots of ways such as when having a conversation, and what I think the skill is is steering and creating structures to orchestrate AIs into automated workflows which is a new way of working. And so what I mean is that with a new technology you can't expect a transfer to the way you work with old technologies rather you have to figure out the better new way you can use the new technology, and the brain would grow for this specific new way of working. And one could analyse depending on ones goal if it's a tool you'd want to use in the sense that cause leads to effect or if you would be better off for your specific goal to ignore the new technology and do it the usual way.
OhNotAPaper 1y ago
> I can’t believe riding a horse and carriage wouldn’t make you better at riding a horse. Surely you mean "would"? Because riding a horse and carriage doesn't imply any ability at riding a horse, but the reverse relation would actually make sense, as you already have historical, experiential, intimate knowledge of a horse despite no contemporaneous, immediate physical contact. Similarly, already knowing what you want to write would make you more proficient at operating a chatbot to produce what you want to write faster—but telling a chatbot a vague sense of the meaning you want to communicate wouldn't make you better at communicating. How would you communicate with the chatbot what you want if you never developed the ability to articulate what you want by learning to write? EDIT: I sort of understand what you might be getting at—you can learn to write by using a chatbot if you mimic the chatbot like the chatbot mimics humans—but I'd still prefer humans learn directly from humans rather than rephrased by some corporate middle-man with unknown quality and zero liability.
- wcoenen 1y ago
  The first sentence in the comment you are responding to is sarcasm. Just replace "I can't believe" with "Of course".
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - OhNotAPaper 1y ago
    > The first sentence in the comment you are responding to is sarcasm. Just replace "I can't believe" with "Of course". Do you have any evidence of this?
    - wcoenen 1y ago
      No, because of Poe's law only the author of the comment can confirm. But the analogy makes sense then: "[Of course] writing an essay with chatgpt wouldn’t make you better at writing essays unassisted. Sure, a student wouldn’t want to practice the wrong way, but anyone else just wants to produce a good essay."
    - christophilus 1y ago
      It’s fairly obvious from the context.
      - OhNotAPaper 1y ago
        Obviously, what you perceive as obviousness may not be obvious to others.
- Frummy 1y ago
  From the thread: yes, it's sarcasm. Here's some clarification as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44291314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44291314 Yes, I'm acknowledging a lack of skill transfer, but that there are new ways of working and so I sarcastically imply the article can't see the forest for the trees, missing the big picture. A horse and carriage is very useful for lots of things. A horse is more specialised. I'm getting at the analogy of a technological generalisation and expansion, while logistics is not part of my argument. If you want to write a very good essay and if you're good at that then do it manually. If you want to create scalable workflows and have 5 layers of agents interacting with each other collaboratively and adversarially scouring the internet and newssites and forums to then send investment suggestions to your mail every lunch then that's a scale that's not possible with a pen and paper and so prompting has an expanded cause and effect cone
adeon 1y ago
The task of riding a horse can be almost entirely offsourced to the professional horse riders. If they take your carriage from point A to point B, sure, you care about just getting somewhere. Taking the article's task of essay writing: someone presumably is supposed to read them. It's not a carriage task from point A to point B anymore. If the LLM-assisted writers begin to not even understand their own work (quoting from abstract "LLM users also struggled to accurately quote their own work.") how do they know they are not putting out nonsense?
- eru 1y ago
  > If the LLM-assisted writers begin to not even understand their own work (quoting from abstract "LLM users also struggled to accurately quote their own work.") how do they know they are not putting out nonsense? They are trained (amongst other things) on human essays. They just need to mimic them well enough to pass the class. > Taking the article's task of essay writing: someone presumably is supposed to read them. Soon enough, that someone is gonna be another LLM more often than not.
bakugo 1y ago
You know the AI-induced cognitive decline is already well under way when people start comparing writing an essay to riding a horse.
namaria 1y ago
Horse riding was invented much later than carriages, and it revolutionized warfare.
- gnabgib 1y ago
  Can you point at some references? Horse riding started around 3500 BC[0], while horse carriages started around 100BC [1], oxen/buffalo drawn devices around 3000 BC[1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equestrianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equestrianism [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carriage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carriage
  - namaria 1y ago
    From the article [0] you linked: "However, the most unequivocal early archaeological evidence of equines put to working use was of horses being driven. Chariot burials about 2500 BC present the most direct hard evidence of horses used as working animals. In ancient times chariot warfare was followed by the use of war horses as light and heavy cavalry." Long discussion in History Exchange about dating the cave paintings mentioned in the wikipedia article above: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/68935/when-did-horseback-riding-start-are-doosheh-cave-petroglyphs-authentic-and-corr https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/68935/when-did-h...
    - gnabgib 1y ago
      Well exactly.. a millennium after being ridden (3500BC) they were used as beasts of burden (2500BC).. rather the opposite of your claim.
      - namaria 1y ago
        The 3500 BCE date for horse ridding is speculative and poorly supported by evidence. I thought the language in the bit I pasted made that clear. "Horse being driven" means attached to chariots, not ridden. Unless you want to date the industrial revolution to 30 BCE when Vitruvius described the aeolipile, we can talk about the evidence of these technologies impact in society. For chariots that would be 1700 BCE and horseback riding well into iron age ~1000 BCE.

by Frummy 1y ago

I can’t believe riding a horse and carriage wouldn’t make you better at riding a horse. Sure a horserider wouldn’t want to practice the wrong way, but anyone else just wants to get somewhere

apsurd 1y ago

i didn't read the article but come on riding a horse to get to a destination is not remotely similar to writing an essay. if you say it's a means to an end - to what a good grade? - we've lost the plot long ago. writing is for thinking.

Frummy 1y ago
I'm making an analogy as to the type of skill it is, so yes, means to an end. I wouldn't mean an apathetic student jumping through bureaucratic educational hoops and requirements, but perhaps a selfdriven person wanting to get something done. What I'm saying is that yes writing essays is one skill and if it's your goal to write essays then obviously not doing it yourself entirely will make you worse than otherwise. But I'm expanding a bit beyond the paper saying that yes the brain won't grow for this specific skill because it's actually a different skill. Thinking can be done in lots of ways such as when having a conversation, and what I think the skill is is steering and creating structures to orchestrate AIs into automated workflows which is a new way of working. And so what I mean is that with a new technology you can't expect a transfer to the way you work with old technologies rather you have to figure out the better new way you can use the new technology, and the brain would grow for this specific new way of working. And one could analyse depending on ones goal if it's a tool you'd want to use in the sense that cause leads to effect or if you would be better off for your specific goal to ignore the new technology and do it the usual way.

OhNotAPaper 1y ago

> I can’t believe riding a horse and carriage wouldn’t make you better at riding a horse. Surely you mean "would"? Because riding a horse and carriage doesn't imply any ability at riding a horse, but the reverse relation would actually make sense, as you already have historical, experiential, intimate knowledge of a horse despite no contemporaneous, immediate physical contact. Similarly, already knowing what you want to write would make you more proficient at operating a chatbot to produce what you want to write faster—but telling a chatbot a vague sense of the meaning you want to communicate wouldn't make you better at communicating. How would you communicate with the chatbot what you want if you never developed the ability to articulate what you want by learning to write? EDIT: I sort of understand what you might be getting at—you can learn to write by using a chatbot if you mimic the chatbot like the chatbot mimics humans—but I'd still prefer humans learn directly from humans rather than rephrased by some corporate middle-man with unknown quality and zero liability.

wcoenen 1y ago
The first sentence in the comment you are responding to is sarcasm. Just replace "I can't believe" with "Of course".
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- OhNotAPaper 1y ago
  > The first sentence in the comment you are responding to is sarcasm. Just replace "I can't believe" with "Of course". Do you have any evidence of this?
  - wcoenen 1y ago
    No, because of Poe's law only the author of the comment can confirm. But the analogy makes sense then: "[Of course] writing an essay with chatgpt wouldn’t make you better at writing essays unassisted. Sure, a student wouldn’t want to practice the wrong way, but anyone else just wants to produce a good essay."
  - christophilus 1y ago
    It’s fairly obvious from the context.
    - OhNotAPaper 1y ago
      Obviously, what you perceive as obviousness may not be obvious to others.
Frummy 1y ago
From the thread: yes, it's sarcasm. Here's some clarification as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44291314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44291314 Yes, I'm acknowledging a lack of skill transfer, but that there are new ways of working and so I sarcastically imply the article can't see the forest for the trees, missing the big picture. A horse and carriage is very useful for lots of things. A horse is more specialised. I'm getting at the analogy of a technological generalisation and expansion, while logistics is not part of my argument. If you want to write a very good essay and if you're good at that then do it manually. If you want to create scalable workflows and have 5 layers of agents interacting with each other collaboratively and adversarially scouring the internet and newssites and forums to then send investment suggestions to your mail every lunch then that's a scale that's not possible with a pen and paper and so prompting has an expanded cause and effect cone

adeon 1y ago

The task of riding a horse can be almost entirely offsourced to the professional horse riders. If they take your carriage from point A to point B, sure, you care about just getting somewhere. Taking the article's task of essay writing: someone presumably is supposed to read them. It's not a carriage task from point A to point B anymore. If the LLM-assisted writers begin to not even understand their own work (quoting from abstract "LLM users also struggled to accurately quote their own work.") how do they know they are not putting out nonsense?

eru 1y ago
> If the LLM-assisted writers begin to not even understand their own work (quoting from abstract "LLM users also struggled to accurately quote their own work.") how do they know they are not putting out nonsense? They are trained (amongst other things) on human essays. They just need to mimic them well enough to pass the class. > Taking the article's task of essay writing: someone presumably is supposed to read them. Soon enough, that someone is gonna be another LLM more often than not.

bakugo 1y ago

You know the AI-induced cognitive decline is already well under way when people start comparing writing an essay to riding a horse.

namaria 1y ago

Horse riding was invented much later than carriages, and it revolutionized warfare.

gnabgib 1y ago
Can you point at some references? Horse riding started around 3500 BC[0], while horse carriages started around 100BC [1], oxen/buffalo drawn devices around 3000 BC[1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equestrianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equestrianism [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carriage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carriage
- namaria 1y ago
  From the article [0] you linked: "However, the most unequivocal early archaeological evidence of equines put to working use was of horses being driven. Chariot burials about 2500 BC present the most direct hard evidence of horses used as working animals. In ancient times chariot warfare was followed by the use of war horses as light and heavy cavalry." Long discussion in History Exchange about dating the cave paintings mentioned in the wikipedia article above: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/68935/when-did-horseback-riding-start-are-doosheh-cave-petroglyphs-authentic-and-corr https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/68935/when-did-h...
  - gnabgib 1y ago
    Well exactly.. a millennium after being ridden (3500BC) they were used as beasts of burden (2500BC).. rather the opposite of your claim.
    - namaria 1y ago
      The 3500 BCE date for horse ridding is speculative and poorly supported by evidence. I thought the language in the bit I pasted made that clear. "Horse being driven" means attached to chariots, not ridden. Unless you want to date the industrial revolution to 30 BCE when Vitruvius described the aeolipile, we can talk about the evidence of these technologies impact in society. For chariots that would be 1700 BCE and horseback riding well into iron age ~1000 BCE.