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My current opinion is that AI is just a thing that is going to further amplify our existing tendencies (on a person-to-person basis). I've personally found it t

My current opinion is that AI is just a thing that is going to further amplify our existing tendencies (on a person-to-person basis). I've personally found it to be extremely beneficial in research, learning, and the category of "things that take time because of the stuff you have to mechanically go through and not because of the brainpower involved". I have been able to spend so much more time on things that I feel require more human thinking and on stuff I generally enjoy more. It has been wonderful and I feel like I've been on a rocket ship of personal growth. I've seen many other people who have essentially become meatspace analogues for AI applications. It's sad to watch this happen while listening to many of the same people complain about how AI will take their jobs, without realizing that they've _given_ AI their jobs by ensuring that they add nothing to the process. I don't really understand yet why people don't see that they are doing this to themselves.

mnky9800n 1y ago
It fulfills steve jobs promise that a computer is a bicycle for your mind. It is crazy to me that all these poeple think they are going to lose their ability to think. If you didn't lose your ability to think to scrolling social media then you aren't going to lose it to AI. However, I think a lot of people lost their ability to think by scrolling social media and that is problematic. What people need to realize is that they have agency over what they put in their mind and they probably shouldn't put massive amounts of algorithmically determined content without first considering if its going to push them in a particular direction of beliefs, purchases, or lifestyle choices.
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  > If you didn't lose your ability to think to scrolling social media ... Didn't we?
  - jader201 1y ago
    > However, I think a lot of people lost their ability to think by scrolling social media and that is problematic.
    - KerrAvon 1y ago
      Specifically, most of the billionaires. They’re all deranged lunatics now, between COVID, social media, and being told they couldn’t say the n-word with impunity for two weeks back in 2020.
      - johnnyanmac 1y ago
        They always were. COVID just had them fully mask off (no pun intended). I still remember Musk trying to call those cave rescuers pedophiles because they wouldn't use his plan instead. That was 2018.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      I only read two sentences max of any comment since I downloaded TikTok.
- mtillman 1y ago
  1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255603105_The_Effect_of_Vehicle_Navigation_Systems_on_the_Formation_of_Cognitive_Maps https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255603105_The_Effec... 2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25509828/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25509828/ 3. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/392560878_Your_Brain_on_ChatGPT_Accumulation_of_Cognitive_Debt_when_Using_an_AI_Assistant_for_Essay_Writing_Task https://www.researchgate.net/publication/392560878_Your_Brai... I’m pretty convinced it should be used to do things humans can’t do instead of things humans can do well with practice. However, I’m also convinced that Capital will always rely on Labor to use it on their behalf.
  - Forgeties79 1y ago
    That’s always been the issue for me. It’s not the technology itself, it’s that virtually the entire initiative is being pushed by venture capital with a “we want to make more money than God” mission that means they call every person calling for caution a Luddite/anti-progress. That’s basically how every thing on the Internet has expanded over the last 20 years and the results have been, if I’m being insanely generous, mixed at best.
    - DrewADesign 1y ago
      I also think that being a little more cautious would have yielded many, if not most of the benefits we've received while avoiding many of the downfalls. Most of these companies knew their products were negatively affecting their users-- e.g. instagram and teen girl self esteem-- but actively suppressed it because it would inhibit making dump trucks full of money off of it. People who stand to make that money will ALWAYS say you're going to ruin everything if you do anything at all to impede progress-- that's ridiculous. The people that use their turn signal and drive within 10mph of the speed limit still reach their destination, and with dramatically less risk than the people that drive pedal-to-the-metal, tailgating, with that self-absorbed fuck-everybody-else attitude.
      - mnky9800n 1y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEIrQUXm_hY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEIrQUXm_hY
- jhbadger 1y ago
  Being a "bicycle for the mind" is a fine thing for technology to be. The problem is just as with bicycles that's too much work for a lot of people and they would prefer "cars for the mind" in which they have to do nothing.
  - daxfohl 1y ago
    Even cars are too much. Give me a Waymo. Or better yet just let me stay home and doom scroll while my life gets delivered to my doorstep. Geesh, doorbell again. Last mile problem? C'mon. Whoever solves the last 30 feet problem is the real hero.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      > Whoever solves the last 30 feet problem is the real hero. Paintball gun, except with cream fillings instead of paint, and softer shells so they can be fired straight into people's mouths.
- bgwalter 1y ago
  Except that generative "AI" is a tricycle for the mind that prevents you from ever learning how to ride a bicycle.
  - j4coh 1y ago
    It’s more like a bus where you can sit there and stare out the window if you like. But somehow it also gives people the illusion that they are driving the bus, giving them a sense of self satisfaction while robbing them of the opportunity to actually create or learn something.
- MattRix 1y ago
  It’s less like a bicycle for the mind, and more like a bus. Sure you’re gonna get there quickly, but you’ll to end up at the same place as a bunch of other people, and you won’t remember the route you took to get there.
- program_whiz 1y ago
  Honestly I feel my skills atrophying if I rely on AI too much, and many people I interact with are much weaker still (trying to vibe code without ever learning). To take your analogy further, having a single speed bike lets you go further faster and doesn't have a big impact on your "skills" (physical in this case), but deferring all transport to cars, and then to an electric scooter so you never have to walk definitely will cause your endurance / physical ability to walk to disappear. We are creatures that require constant use of and exercise of our capabilities or the system crumbles. Especially for high-skill activities (language, piano, video games, programming), proficiency can wane extremely quickly without constant practice.
password54321 1y ago
The post was largely about young people who are growing up with these tools and are still at the stage of developing their habits and tendencies. Personally I am glad I learnt programming before LLMs even if it meant the tedious searches on stackoverflow because I didn't feel like I was coming up against a wave of new technology when it came to future job searches. Having done so I can understand and appreciate the intrinsic value of learning these things but western culture is largely about extrinsic values that may lead to the future generation on missing out on learning certain skills.
- jstanley 1y ago
  Personally I am glad I learnt programming before StackOverflow! Precisely because it meant I had to learn to figure things out myself. I still use StackOverflow and LLMs, but if those things were available when I was learning I would probably not have learnt as much.
  - mcny 1y ago
    I started programming before stack overflow, was never any good (still am not to this day), but I was always scared of asking questions on stack overflow. I felt like there was a certain amount of homework expected when you ask a question and usually by the time I did enough work to post a question, it was moot because I would have solved my problem usually by stringing together two or more stack overflow questions to understand my problem better. The change with LLM is I can now just ask my hare brained questions first and figure out why it was a stupid question later
    - skydhash 1y ago
      I can't check, but I don't think I've ever asked questions on StackOverflow, or even Reddit. Maybe I'm lucky, but my searches have always given me enough leads to find my own solutions or where to find them. There's a lot of documentations and tips floating around the internet. And for a lot of technologies, the code is available as well (or a debugger).
catigula 1y ago
I think what you will find is that many people fundamentally don't care about their job for various reasons, chiefly of which is most likely that they don't feel fairly compensated, and thus outsourcing their labor to AI isn't the fundamental identify transplant you think it is.
zelphirkalt 1y ago
The problem is, that many people are also incapable of adding much to the process. We have had that kind of situation long before "AI". There are tons of gatekeepers and other types of people out there, that are a net negative, wherever they are employed, either by doing bad work, which someone else needs to clean up after them, or by destroying work culture with silly shortsighted dogmatism of how things must work, clueless middle management, and so on. We need to leave these people somewhere. Maybe with "AI" a few more of these are revealed, but the problem stays the same. Where do we leave all these people? What task can we give them, that is not dehumanizing can we give them, where they will be a positive, instead of net negative to society? Or do we leave it all up to chance, that one day they will find something they are actually good at, and that doesn't result in net negative for humanity? What is the future of all the people? UBI and letting them figure it out doesn't look like such a bad idea.
walleeee 1y ago
> I don't really understand yet why people don't see that they are doing this to themselves. Maybe it has something to do with the purveyors of these products - claiming they will take the jobs - designing them to be habit-forming - advertising them as digital mentats - failing to advertise risks of using them

mnky9800n 1y ago

It fulfills steve jobs promise that a computer is a bicycle for your mind. It is crazy to me that all these poeple think they are going to lose their ability to think. If you didn't lose your ability to think to scrolling social media then you aren't going to lose it to AI. However, I think a lot of people lost their ability to think by scrolling social media and that is problematic. What people need to realize is that they have agency over what they put in their mind and they probably shouldn't put massive amounts of algorithmically determined content without first considering if its going to push them in a particular direction of beliefs, purchases, or lifestyle choices.

AlecSchueler 1y ago
> If you didn't lose your ability to think to scrolling social media ... Didn't we?
- jader201 1y ago
  > However, I think a lot of people lost their ability to think by scrolling social media and that is problematic.
  - KerrAvon 1y ago
    Specifically, most of the billionaires. They’re all deranged lunatics now, between COVID, social media, and being told they couldn’t say the n-word with impunity for two weeks back in 2020.
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      They always were. COVID just had them fully mask off (no pun intended). I still remember Musk trying to call those cave rescuers pedophiles because they wouldn't use his plan instead. That was 2018.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    I only read two sentences max of any comment since I downloaded TikTok.
mtillman 1y ago
1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255603105_The_Effect_of_Vehicle_Navigation_Systems_on_the_Formation_of_Cognitive_Maps https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255603105_The_Effec... 2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25509828/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25509828/ 3. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/392560878_Your_Brain_on_ChatGPT_Accumulation_of_Cognitive_Debt_when_Using_an_AI_Assistant_for_Essay_Writing_Task https://www.researchgate.net/publication/392560878_Your_Brai... I’m pretty convinced it should be used to do things humans can’t do instead of things humans can do well with practice. However, I’m also convinced that Capital will always rely on Labor to use it on their behalf.
- Forgeties79 1y ago
  That’s always been the issue for me. It’s not the technology itself, it’s that virtually the entire initiative is being pushed by venture capital with a “we want to make more money than God” mission that means they call every person calling for caution a Luddite/anti-progress. That’s basically how every thing on the Internet has expanded over the last 20 years and the results have been, if I’m being insanely generous, mixed at best.
  - DrewADesign 1y ago
    I also think that being a little more cautious would have yielded many, if not most of the benefits we've received while avoiding many of the downfalls. Most of these companies knew their products were negatively affecting their users-- e.g. instagram and teen girl self esteem-- but actively suppressed it because it would inhibit making dump trucks full of money off of it. People who stand to make that money will ALWAYS say you're going to ruin everything if you do anything at all to impede progress-- that's ridiculous. The people that use their turn signal and drive within 10mph of the speed limit still reach their destination, and with dramatically less risk than the people that drive pedal-to-the-metal, tailgating, with that self-absorbed fuck-everybody-else attitude.
    - mnky9800n 1y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEIrQUXm_hY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEIrQUXm_hY
jhbadger 1y ago
Being a "bicycle for the mind" is a fine thing for technology to be. The problem is just as with bicycles that's too much work for a lot of people and they would prefer "cars for the mind" in which they have to do nothing.
- daxfohl 1y ago
  Even cars are too much. Give me a Waymo. Or better yet just let me stay home and doom scroll while my life gets delivered to my doorstep. Geesh, doorbell again. Last mile problem? C'mon. Whoever solves the last 30 feet problem is the real hero.
  - ben_w 1y ago
    > Whoever solves the last 30 feet problem is the real hero. Paintball gun, except with cream fillings instead of paint, and softer shells so they can be fired straight into people's mouths.
bgwalter 1y ago
Except that generative "AI" is a tricycle for the mind that prevents you from ever learning how to ride a bicycle.
- j4coh 1y ago
  It’s more like a bus where you can sit there and stare out the window if you like. But somehow it also gives people the illusion that they are driving the bus, giving them a sense of self satisfaction while robbing them of the opportunity to actually create or learn something.
MattRix 1y ago
It’s less like a bicycle for the mind, and more like a bus. Sure you’re gonna get there quickly, but you’ll to end up at the same place as a bunch of other people, and you won’t remember the route you took to get there.
program_whiz 1y ago
Honestly I feel my skills atrophying if I rely on AI too much, and many people I interact with are much weaker still (trying to vibe code without ever learning). To take your analogy further, having a single speed bike lets you go further faster and doesn't have a big impact on your "skills" (physical in this case), but deferring all transport to cars, and then to an electric scooter so you never have to walk definitely will cause your endurance / physical ability to walk to disappear. We are creatures that require constant use of and exercise of our capabilities or the system crumbles. Especially for high-skill activities (language, piano, video games, programming), proficiency can wane extremely quickly without constant practice.

password54321 1y ago

The post was largely about young people who are growing up with these tools and are still at the stage of developing their habits and tendencies. Personally I am glad I learnt programming before LLMs even if it meant the tedious searches on stackoverflow because I didn't feel like I was coming up against a wave of new technology when it came to future job searches. Having done so I can understand and appreciate the intrinsic value of learning these things but western culture is largely about extrinsic values that may lead to the future generation on missing out on learning certain skills.

jstanley 1y ago
Personally I am glad I learnt programming before StackOverflow! Precisely because it meant I had to learn to figure things out myself. I still use StackOverflow and LLMs, but if those things were available when I was learning I would probably not have learnt as much.
- mcny 1y ago
  I started programming before stack overflow, was never any good (still am not to this day), but I was always scared of asking questions on stack overflow. I felt like there was a certain amount of homework expected when you ask a question and usually by the time I did enough work to post a question, it was moot because I would have solved my problem usually by stringing together two or more stack overflow questions to understand my problem better. The change with LLM is I can now just ask my hare brained questions first and figure out why it was a stupid question later
  - skydhash 1y ago
    I can't check, but I don't think I've ever asked questions on StackOverflow, or even Reddit. Maybe I'm lucky, but my searches have always given me enough leads to find my own solutions or where to find them. There's a lot of documentations and tips floating around the internet. And for a lot of technologies, the code is available as well (or a debugger).

catigula 1y ago

I think what you will find is that many people fundamentally don't care about their job for various reasons, chiefly of which is most likely that they don't feel fairly compensated, and thus outsourcing their labor to AI isn't the fundamental identify transplant you think it is.

zelphirkalt 1y ago

The problem is, that many people are also incapable of adding much to the process. We have had that kind of situation long before "AI". There are tons of gatekeepers and other types of people out there, that are a net negative, wherever they are employed, either by doing bad work, which someone else needs to clean up after them, or by destroying work culture with silly shortsighted dogmatism of how things must work, clueless middle management, and so on. We need to leave these people somewhere. Maybe with "AI" a few more of these are revealed, but the problem stays the same. Where do we leave all these people? What task can we give them, that is not dehumanizing can we give them, where they will be a positive, instead of net negative to society? Or do we leave it all up to chance, that one day they will find something they are actually good at, and that doesn't result in net negative for humanity? What is the future of all the people? UBI and letting them figure it out doesn't look like such a bad idea.

walleeee 1y ago

> I don't really understand yet why people don't see that they are doing this to themselves. Maybe it has something to do with the purveyors of these products - claiming they will take the jobs - designing them to be habit-forming - advertising them as digital mentats - failing to advertise risks of using them