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Books allowed us to store data indefinitely. However, they required lots of effort to read, understand and synthesize knowledge. This new generation of AI is g

Books allowed us to store data indefinitely. However, they required lots of effort to read, understand and synthesize knowledge. This new generation of AI is going to remove the slow to synthesize part

ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
It's a huge mistake. The point of life is the synthesis and growth through working through things. We are moving towards a completely meaningless but instant world.
- kristianc 4y ago
  In fairness, they’ve been saying this exact same thing since about 1800.
  - peteradio 4y ago
    Perhaps we should give credit to what they were seeing then rather than remove credit to what we see today.
  - distortionfield 4y ago
    Even further back. Since at least the time of Greek philosophers.
    - Turing_Machine 4y ago
      Indeed. Socrates: At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters... This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality. From Plato’s ‘Phaedrus’, 360 B.C.E.
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    They might be right.
- wyre 4y ago
  Meaning is ambiguous and finding it is intrinsic to the human condition. Meaning is getting harder to find, certainly, but it can still be found. What we are moving towards is a deterioration of fulfilling experiences as our social world is corroded by the modern internet.
  - brookst 4y ago
    I was fully expecting the last two words to be “printing press”.
- brookst 4y ago
  If you get meaning from using slide rules and riding horses, computers and cars really do strip the world of meaning. Many people find meaning from other things, like personal connections, that are removed from work that can be accelerated with tools.
  - bordercases 4y ago
    [dead]
- nkrisc 4y ago
  Don’t look now, but the world only ever had the meaning you gave it.
  - bordercases 4y ago
    [dead]

ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago

It's a huge mistake. The point of life is the synthesis and growth through working through things. We are moving towards a completely meaningless but instant world.

kristianc 4y ago
In fairness, they’ve been saying this exact same thing since about 1800.
- peteradio 4y ago
  Perhaps we should give credit to what they were seeing then rather than remove credit to what we see today.
- distortionfield 4y ago
  Even further back. Since at least the time of Greek philosophers.
  - Turing_Machine 4y ago
    Indeed. Socrates: At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters... This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality. From Plato’s ‘Phaedrus’, 360 B.C.E.
- whatshisface 4y ago
  They might be right.
wyre 4y ago
Meaning is ambiguous and finding it is intrinsic to the human condition. Meaning is getting harder to find, certainly, but it can still be found. What we are moving towards is a deterioration of fulfilling experiences as our social world is corroded by the modern internet.
- brookst 4y ago
  I was fully expecting the last two words to be “printing press”.
brookst 4y ago
If you get meaning from using slide rules and riding horses, computers and cars really do strip the world of meaning. Many people find meaning from other things, like personal connections, that are removed from work that can be accelerated with tools.
- bordercases 4y ago
  [dead]
nkrisc 4y ago
Don’t look now, but the world only ever had the meaning you gave it.
- bordercases 4y ago
  [dead]