4 ms·

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 dextere

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.

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.