5 ms·

One of my worries regarding AI is that we will decide to deskill ourselves instead of using the extra productivity to improve ourselves. In this case, students

by yyyk 4y ago

One of my worries regarding AI is that we will decide to deskill ourselves instead of using the extra productivity to improve ourselves. In this case, students may end up with a smaller ability to write their own thoughts but in return get fill-in-the-blanks exercises.

jimkleiber 4y ago
Yea, makes me think we might shift from being writers and editors to mostly being editors. I remember years back a friend of mine (I think an English major in undergrad) said he was more of an editor than a writer because he often struggled to come up with new or original ideas. So I wonder what it means if/when we let the AIs come up with the ideas and we just correct them. I have no idea what the implications might be.
- shaunsingh0207 4y ago
  The opposite is also possible (and what I'm hoping for): Humans come up with the ideas, write out some boiler plate code etc. and let AI fill in the blanks.
  - rikroots 4y ago
    As a writer, I'm much happier in the revision/editing stage than in the first draft stage. I have a half-finished novel that's been half-finished for the best part of 8 years now. I'm now thinking that maybe if I feed the draft into <ML-shiny-of-the-day> with suggestions for how I want the next section/chapter to develop, it could generate some draft copy for me. Possibly several different versions. After which I'm in my Happy Editing Place, shaping existing copy to something I like. Repeat and rinse! The end result would be 100% my work as the ML algorithm/brains/whatever would be generating new copy based on my existing copy and my vision and direction for the novel. And I get the final say on the results. Win-Win!
- emodendroket 4y ago
  I think your friend is too hard on himself -- a lack of original ideas is no impediment for many writers.
- anon___ 4y ago
  Socrates was worried that writing, the then new invention, will cause forgetfulness. > The people who invent something new, create a new tool or technology, are not necessarily the people who are going to understand what the social impact of those inventions will be. >> And so it is that you by reason of your tender regard for the writing that is your offspring have declared the very opposite of its true effect. If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. >> What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only the semblance of wisdom, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much while for the most part they know nothing. And as men filled not with wisdom but with the conceit of wisdom they will be a burden to their fellows. https://fs.blog/an-old-argument-against-writing/ https://fs.blog/an-old-argument-against-writing/
  - OJFord 4y ago
    Do we know it didn't?
    - reflexco 4y ago
      It almost certainly did, but for what we lost in working memory, we gained a broadness of outlooks that would have been unfathomable at the time. We are connecting ideas from further afar in a sense.
      - mountainb 4y ago
        Why is broadness good?
    - egman_ekki 4y ago
      We don't seem to remember.
laserbeam 4y ago
I believe the societal level risks are reversed. Because so many people will use AI to produce content we will be overwhelmed with even more shady content, and mid quality fake news. Reading comprehension, critical thinking and source verification will be much harder than today. This is not filling in blanks. This encourages students to verify and analyze and that is great! It also gives them a framework to understand the limitations of AI so they can more effectively use it.
- yyyk 4y ago
  >I believe the societal level risks are reversed. Your scenario is not a contradiction. We could have a lower level of ability to express ourselves combined with a lot of AI generic content effecting reading comprehension combined with lower-level AIs (because they end up being trained on AI generic content) combined with style being stuck in a certain form and never evolving (because AIs will keep generating new generic content in the same default style). Deskilling is one of the things that worries me more than AIs 'taking over the world' - more likely we'll eventually hand it to AIs willingly or evolve ourselves somehow. >This encourages students to verify and analyze and that is great! Very reasonable, I'm not against this exercise per se. I am wondering where this will lead to.
- EamonnMR 4y ago
  So in other words, better consumers. But we're at our best when we create...
Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago
Isn't that one of the arguments regarding our own evolution? I remember the whole argument around how since the invention of agriculture humans are less dextereous and have to be less alert cause we are mostly safe. Without that loss of hand eye coordination that followed the lack of daily hunting there is also no roman empire, no silk road, no pyramids, no three sisters in indegenous agriculture, no man on the moon, no internet and no chatgpt. Whether we would be sacrificing a skill, or gaining enough productivity for the next leap forward I guess we will have to see.
- yyyk 4y ago
  Yes, but all that was followed by a different human ability to compensate for the loss. Here we may be replacing this with AI, not with a human skill however indirect. Also, this type of AI tech is trained from us, and therefore I'm unsure it can reach significant advancement over current human ability (ChatGPT won't create any new writing styles). We may just end up in a local maxima. Compare to Chess engines which could exceed human ability since they had an obviously good optimization criteria: winning games.
  - earthnail 4y ago
    Not necessarily. I don't think people were aware at each of these moments what ability they would compensate it with. Mostly they were just happy that tedious things got easier. So many people here are worried about the essay with in-depth thought. But let's face it: a lot of written content isn't that valuable. A friend of mine had ChatGPT write his goodbye email for him, and the result was a) really good and b) really funny because it just illustrated how interchangeable these emails are. Another example: at the large consultancy firms (McKinsey etc), they have a large number of "slide monkeys" that consultants can use to have their powerpoint slides made. Of course nobody officially admits to calling them slide monkeys (I mean, what a terrible term), but everyone unofficially does. These "slide monkeys" are basically low-wage support staff in developing nations like India. AI can automate that work. That might maybe also make us consider whether the slide format is even an efficient one. Right now, slides imply value because of the time required to make them. Once that changes, we might focus our evaluation of value more on how much content they can deliver efficiently to their audience.

by yyyk 4y ago

jimkleiber 4y ago

Yea, makes me think we might shift from being writers and editors to mostly being editors. I remember years back a friend of mine (I think an English major in undergrad) said he was more of an editor than a writer because he often struggled to come up with new or original ideas. So I wonder what it means if/when we let the AIs come up with the ideas and we just correct them. I have no idea what the implications might be.

shaunsingh0207 4y ago
The opposite is also possible (and what I'm hoping for): Humans come up with the ideas, write out some boiler plate code etc. and let AI fill in the blanks.
- rikroots 4y ago
  As a writer, I'm much happier in the revision/editing stage than in the first draft stage. I have a half-finished novel that's been half-finished for the best part of 8 years now. I'm now thinking that maybe if I feed the draft into <ML-shiny-of-the-day> with suggestions for how I want the next section/chapter to develop, it could generate some draft copy for me. Possibly several different versions. After which I'm in my Happy Editing Place, shaping existing copy to something I like. Repeat and rinse! The end result would be 100% my work as the ML algorithm/brains/whatever would be generating new copy based on my existing copy and my vision and direction for the novel. And I get the final say on the results. Win-Win!
emodendroket 4y ago
I think your friend is too hard on himself -- a lack of original ideas is no impediment for many writers.
anon___ 4y ago
Socrates was worried that writing, the then new invention, will cause forgetfulness. > The people who invent something new, create a new tool or technology, are not necessarily the people who are going to understand what the social impact of those inventions will be. >> And so it is that you by reason of your tender regard for the writing that is your offspring have declared the very opposite of its true effect. If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. >> What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only the semblance of wisdom, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much while for the most part they know nothing. And as men filled not with wisdom but with the conceit of wisdom they will be a burden to their fellows. https://fs.blog/an-old-argument-against-writing/ https://fs.blog/an-old-argument-against-writing/
- OJFord 4y ago
  Do we know it didn't?
  - reflexco 4y ago
    It almost certainly did, but for what we lost in working memory, we gained a broadness of outlooks that would have been unfathomable at the time. We are connecting ideas from further afar in a sense.
    - mountainb 4y ago
      Why is broadness good?
  - egman_ekki 4y ago
    We don't seem to remember.

laserbeam 4y ago

I believe the societal level risks are reversed. Because so many people will use AI to produce content we will be overwhelmed with even more shady content, and mid quality fake news. Reading comprehension, critical thinking and source verification will be much harder than today. This is not filling in blanks. This encourages students to verify and analyze and that is great! It also gives them a framework to understand the limitations of AI so they can more effectively use it.

yyyk 4y ago
>I believe the societal level risks are reversed. Your scenario is not a contradiction. We could have a lower level of ability to express ourselves combined with a lot of AI generic content effecting reading comprehension combined with lower-level AIs (because they end up being trained on AI generic content) combined with style being stuck in a certain form and never evolving (because AIs will keep generating new generic content in the same default style). Deskilling is one of the things that worries me more than AIs 'taking over the world' - more likely we'll eventually hand it to AIs willingly or evolve ourselves somehow. >This encourages students to verify and analyze and that is great! Very reasonable, I'm not against this exercise per se. I am wondering where this will lead to.
EamonnMR 4y ago
So in other words, better consumers. But we're at our best when we create...

Arkhaine_kupo 4y ago

Isn't that one of the arguments regarding our own evolution? I remember the whole argument around how since the invention of agriculture humans are less dextereous and have to be less alert cause we are mostly safe. Without that loss of hand eye coordination that followed the lack of daily hunting there is also no roman empire, no silk road, no pyramids, no three sisters in indegenous agriculture, no man on the moon, no internet and no chatgpt. Whether we would be sacrificing a skill, or gaining enough productivity for the next leap forward I guess we will have to see.

yyyk 4y ago
Yes, but all that was followed by a different human ability to compensate for the loss. Here we may be replacing this with AI, not with a human skill however indirect. Also, this type of AI tech is trained from us, and therefore I'm unsure it can reach significant advancement over current human ability (ChatGPT won't create any new writing styles). We may just end up in a local maxima. Compare to Chess engines which could exceed human ability since they had an obviously good optimization criteria: winning games.
- earthnail 4y ago
  Not necessarily. I don't think people were aware at each of these moments what ability they would compensate it with. Mostly they were just happy that tedious things got easier. So many people here are worried about the essay with in-depth thought. But let's face it: a lot of written content isn't that valuable. A friend of mine had ChatGPT write his goodbye email for him, and the result was a) really good and b) really funny because it just illustrated how interchangeable these emails are. Another example: at the large consultancy firms (McKinsey etc), they have a large number of "slide monkeys" that consultants can use to have their powerpoint slides made. Of course nobody officially admits to calling them slide monkeys (I mean, what a terrible term), but everyone unofficially does. These "slide monkeys" are basically low-wage support staff in developing nations like India. AI can automate that work. That might maybe also make us consider whether the slide format is even an efficient one. Right now, slides imply value because of the time required to make them. Once that changes, we might focus our evaluation of value more on how much content they can deliver efficiently to their audience.