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Imagine saying this about a graphing calculator, because that is essentially what the LLM is for knowledge work. You can either be dumb and spell 8008135 or you

Imagine saying this about a graphing calculator, because that is essentially what the LLM is for knowledge work. You can either be dumb and spell 8008135 or you can get an education and make it sing. They definitely want us dependent on their products for life, because that's what capitalism is, but dumb kids won't be the profitable ones.

adamddev1 11d ago
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debo_ 11d ago
We were not allowed to have graphing calculators in elementary or highschool (90s), either.
- qwerpy 11d ago
  I was in school around that time and I always had a graphing calculator in class and most of the time in standardized tests, AP tests, etc. It was basically just math competitions that wouldn't allow it. The graphing functionality was almost never used for anything. But the multi-line display could be used for notes, which is why they were banned for competitions.
  - debo_ 11d ago
    Yeah, not us. If our calculators had more than one line or a suspicious number of buttons, it was disallowed in class.
alpinisme 11d ago
A graphing calculator for all knowledge work is just a(n artificial) brain. It’s not hard to see how offloading brain work to another brain makes your brain less powerful. I’m not saying you can’t be intelligent in a world of LLMs but people who use the calculator analogy underscore the fact that the LLM isn’t just eliminating the drudgery of one subdomain of mechanical problem solving — every problem is one an LLM can provide and answer for, including what you should learn, what problems you should solve, what your next conversation with the LLM should be about. So they do pose at least a threat of people truly offloading indefinite amounts of their own critical thinking to models, and there’s also danger that such people will in general still be competent enough often enough (due to LLM competence) that they are hard to screen out of key decision making roles or even from highly profitable roles.
- jesse_dot_id 11d ago
  I truly don't understand why people think LLMs eliminate the need for mastery, or that they limit thinking. I have a lot more time to think when I use a good harness. It handles the pointless toil and I handle the thinking. I'm just thinking about different things. Instead of trying to coax the correct answers from a search engine, the LLM is doing that for me and parsing the correct output, so I'm not spending hours upon hours wading through detritus. While it's doing that, I'm using that time to think more about the problems I'm solving, the UX, etc. I'm not sure what to tell you if you think the LLM solves for novel thinking.
  - whateveracct 11d ago
    The issue is at scale. A tragedy of the commons in a way. I have seen a situation where engineers can't write code by hand if challenged to. Not one. At scale (like the juniors got quizzed as an AI sanity check and couldn't hack it.)
  - alpinisme 10d ago
    I don’t think it solves for novel thinking. I don’t think it will make better decisions than an informed and engaged human. But I don’t think there are any decisions a human is forced to make (unlike with a calculator) so people can offload any decision in particular, which is encourages, in aggregate, atrophying. And on top of that, you may find it increasingly difficult without extended time working with someone to identify them as the kind of person who has offloaded all important decisions in this way and just maintained the minimal awareness needed to keep sounding plausibly able.
ToucanLoucan 11d ago
> Imagine saying this about a graphing calculator, because that is essentially what the LLM is for knowledge work. A frankly hilarious statement given several key facts: * You don't get and in fact are usually barred from using a graphing calculator outside of coursework designed around it * Even when you DO use one, it is very often after years upon years of drawing graphs yourself. Analogous to LLMs even moreso than your core example, because to make use of an LLM in a way that is actually productive, you DO need to know what you're talking about with it, to suss out when it's made some bullshit up.
bluefirebrand 11d ago
> Imagine saying this about a graphing calculator, because that is essentially what the LLM is for knowledge work. Can you plot a graph from an equation by hand? If you can't, but you can use a graphing calculator to plot the graph then it seems like it has led to you not learning that skill. And being able to look at an equation and plot a graph in your head is pretty valuable imo
johnnyanmac 11d ago
Yet there were times where I was not allowed to use a graphing calculator in school tests (mid 00's). Honestly. if you are completely reliant on a graphing calc in an AP calculus course, you're definitely not getting a 5 in the exam. There is a signifigant time pressure that does not allow for that.

adamddev1 11d ago

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debo_ 11d ago

We were not allowed to have graphing calculators in elementary or highschool (90s), either.

qwerpy 11d ago
I was in school around that time and I always had a graphing calculator in class and most of the time in standardized tests, AP tests, etc. It was basically just math competitions that wouldn't allow it. The graphing functionality was almost never used for anything. But the multi-line display could be used for notes, which is why they were banned for competitions.
- debo_ 11d ago
  Yeah, not us. If our calculators had more than one line or a suspicious number of buttons, it was disallowed in class.

alpinisme 11d ago

A graphing calculator for all knowledge work is just a(n artificial) brain. It’s not hard to see how offloading brain work to another brain makes your brain less powerful. I’m not saying you can’t be intelligent in a world of LLMs but people who use the calculator analogy underscore the fact that the LLM isn’t just eliminating the drudgery of one subdomain of mechanical problem solving — every problem is one an LLM can provide and answer for, including what you should learn, what problems you should solve, what your next conversation with the LLM should be about. So they do pose at least a threat of people truly offloading indefinite amounts of their own critical thinking to models, and there’s also danger that such people will in general still be competent enough often enough (due to LLM competence) that they are hard to screen out of key decision making roles or even from highly profitable roles.

jesse_dot_id 11d ago
I truly don't understand why people think LLMs eliminate the need for mastery, or that they limit thinking. I have a lot more time to think when I use a good harness. It handles the pointless toil and I handle the thinking. I'm just thinking about different things. Instead of trying to coax the correct answers from a search engine, the LLM is doing that for me and parsing the correct output, so I'm not spending hours upon hours wading through detritus. While it's doing that, I'm using that time to think more about the problems I'm solving, the UX, etc. I'm not sure what to tell you if you think the LLM solves for novel thinking.
- whateveracct 11d ago
  The issue is at scale. A tragedy of the commons in a way. I have seen a situation where engineers can't write code by hand if challenged to. Not one. At scale (like the juniors got quizzed as an AI sanity check and couldn't hack it.)
- alpinisme 10d ago
  I don’t think it solves for novel thinking. I don’t think it will make better decisions than an informed and engaged human. But I don’t think there are any decisions a human is forced to make (unlike with a calculator) so people can offload any decision in particular, which is encourages, in aggregate, atrophying. And on top of that, you may find it increasingly difficult without extended time working with someone to identify them as the kind of person who has offloaded all important decisions in this way and just maintained the minimal awareness needed to keep sounding plausibly able.

ToucanLoucan 11d ago

> Imagine saying this about a graphing calculator, because that is essentially what the LLM is for knowledge work. A frankly hilarious statement given several key facts: * You don't get and in fact are usually barred from using a graphing calculator outside of coursework designed around it * Even when you DO use one, it is very often after years upon years of drawing graphs yourself. Analogous to LLMs even moreso than your core example, because to make use of an LLM in a way that is actually productive, you DO need to know what you're talking about with it, to suss out when it's made some bullshit up.

bluefirebrand 11d ago

> Imagine saying this about a graphing calculator, because that is essentially what the LLM is for knowledge work. Can you plot a graph from an equation by hand? If you can't, but you can use a graphing calculator to plot the graph then it seems like it has led to you not learning that skill. And being able to look at an equation and plot a graph in your head is pretty valuable imo

johnnyanmac 11d ago

Yet there were times where I was not allowed to use a graphing calculator in school tests (mid 00's). Honestly. if you are completely reliant on a graphing calc in an AP calculus course, you're definitely not getting a 5 in the exam. There is a signifigant time pressure that does not allow for that.