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When my kids ask me why they should learn to write since they can just use AI, I'll remind them of outages like this. I understand that we rely on calculators a
by gnicholas 3y ago
When my kids ask me why they should learn to write since they can just use AI, I'll remind them of outages like this. I understand that we rely on calculators and don't memorize as much arithmetic as we used to. But we never had to worry about a coordinated 'calculator outage', where access to calculation was unavailable.
It makes sense to use these tools, but we need to remember that we revert back to our human ability level when they are offline. We should still invest in our own human skills, and not assume that these tools will always be available. There will be minor outages like these, and in the case of cyber attacks, war or other major disruptions, they could be offline for longer periods of time.
- qup 3y agoOr just host your own?
- verdverm 3y agoThe reason is that writing yourself is a critical thinking tool. It helps you work through the logic and arguments and has benefits well beyond just the content that gets put down. It's the journey, not the destination that matters! Also, don't outsource your thinking to AI or the media (mainstream & social)
- dr_dshiv 3y agoChatGPT is arguably a better tool for thinking than writing on a text editor, though.
- verdverm 3y agoReading and writing have served humanity well. We can see the impact of outsourcing thinking in modernity, via the simplicity of likes and retweets. While ChatGPT can be a helpful tool, the issue is that many will substitute rather than augment. It is a giant language averaging machine, which will bring many people up, but bring the other half down, though not quite because the upper echelons will know better than to parrot the parrot. Summarizing a text will remove the nuance of meaning captured by the authors' words. Generating words will make your writing blasé. Do you think ChatGPT can converse like this?
- nicolas-siplis 3y agoOne might entertain a contrary perspective on the issue of ChatGPT. Rather than being a monolithic linguistic equalizer, it could be seen as a tool, a canvas with a wide spectrum of applications. Sure, some may choose to use it as a crutch, diluting their creativity, yet others might harness it as a springboard, leveraging it to explore new ideas and articulate them in ways they might not have otherwise. Consequently, the notion that ChatGPT could 'bring down' the more skilled among us may warrant further scrutiny. Isn't it possible that the 'upper echelons' might find novel ways to employ this tool, enhancing rather than undermining their capabilities? Similarly, while summarization can be a blunt instrument, stripping away nuance, it can also be a scalpel, cutting through verbosity to deliver clear, concise communication. What if ChatGPT could serve as a tutor, teaching us the art of brevity? The generated words may risk becoming 'blasé', as you eloquently put it, but again, isn't it contingent on how it's used? Can we not find ways to ensure our individual voice still shines through? So, while I understand and respect your concerns, I posit that our apprehensions should not eclipse the potential that tools like ChatGPT offer us. It might not just be a 'parrot' – but a catalyst for the evolution of human communication. Though I'm hoping you didn't suspect it, I should warn you this comment was written by you know what (who?).
- the_jeremy 3y ago“Students today depend on paper too much. They don’t know how to write on a slate without getting chalk dust all over themselves. They can’t clean a slate properly. What will they do when they run out of paper?”
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y agoThis is a poor analogy. Paper doesn't help people write any more than stone. Text generation software absolutely helps people write in a way that is likely to cause them to start using different skills and forget the old skills. They'll at least get out of practice.
- Mertax 3y agoDon't you think we'll get to the point where individual AI instances will be as ubiquitous as calculators? Or will it always require massive compute power that keeps the generative AI population low?
- gaogao 3y agoWe have both itty bitty calculators and supercomputers, so pretty feasible to have both edge AIs and central ones.
- gnicholas 3y agoI think we will, but I think at least for a while they'll be cloud-connected. And at the very least, they'll be battery-dependent. I wouldn't want to be unable to write well when my AI assistant runs out of juice for the day. I'd be surprised if we have solar-powered AI assistants in my lifetime, in the way that we have solar-powered calculators.
- dr_dshiv 3y agoI’m damn sure that someone will make a solar powered AI assistant by 2024.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- moffkalast 3y agoJust saying, Guanaco LLama model just got released that actually beats GPT-3.5 in a fair few metrics. So right now it's already possible to run a local version with a beefy GPU and it'll only get better as time goes on. In a strange coincidence I've recently been doing some tests with small 10 W solar panels and with two or three of those plus an Nvidia Xavier (20 W TDP) one could actually run a solar powered LLM right now with only about as much solar as fits on a person's back (though only the smaller 13B versions). Give it a few years and we'll have them integrated into smartphones. So yes, you will in fact always have an LLM in your pocket just like the ol' calculator excuse.
- CognitiveLens 3y agoGoing entirely on gut feel, I suspect that outages like this will be 1) less common and 2) addressed more quickly with AI-supported DevOps in the not-too-distant future.
- mostlysimilar 3y ago"Don't worry, the AI won't have outages because the AI will be used to keep the AI online."
- CamperBob2 3y agoRelevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops
- smcin 3y agoNever knew E.M. Forster did science fiction too. English author better known for the novels "A Room with a View" (1908), "Howards End" (1910) and "A Passage to India" (1924).
- moffkalast 3y agoYo dawg I heard you like AI so I have AI maintaining your AI so you can always AI while you AI.
- CognitiveLens 3y agoThe actor pattern exists for this reason - it's not like AI is a singular thing checking itself - you could easily have 1000 instances with supervisors automatically rotating out unhealthy instances so that the system is self-repairing even if instances can fail.
- gnicholas 3y agoPerhaps true, but internet outages and power outages will have the same effect. If I lose either, I lose access to a remote AI.
- jasmer 3y agoSo if your kids have constant access to AI, which they will very soon as the web embraces it, they won't need to 'know how to write'? I suggest there are more foundational reasons why it'd be better to learn to write, and that the whole tech world will be AI soon enough and we won't have to depend on OpenAI for this 'feature'. In fact, using AI should probably be a bit more like 'spellcheck', if we're asking AI to write more than that, it's tantamount to filler. 'Writing' is a 'core' civilization skill, it's basic communication.
- verdverm 3y agoIt's arguable that the LLMs can help many people improve their writing, communication, and discourse. But I agree that it should be used more like an editor than a primary author.
- 8note 3y agoI expect kids' versions of writing will be very different from ours, in terms of how they get content onto a page. The grading interface might look similar, but who's gonna use word to write a doc when the real job is coming up with the right prompts to make an ai output the ideas you're trying to communicate?
- YetAnotherNick 3y agoDo you even have the same view for Google? Wikipedia? Entire internet?
- ChatGTP 3y agoYes, I own survival field manuals, some novels etc.
- asynchronous 3y agoAlso have all of Wikipedia sitting on a thumb drive. Redundancy and contingency plans are important.
- ben_w 3y agoI'm surprised when friends insist on having candles around just in case there's a power cut — phones (and, if one insists on an independent backup, torches) just seem so much better. Right now, where you say makes sense in the way candles used to make sense; but that's only because the good LLMs have to run on servers — there are lesser downloadable language models that run on just about anything, including phones and Raspberry Pi[0], and it's almost certain that (if we don't all die and/or play a game of Global Thermonuclear War etc.) it'll soon be exactly like having a calculator outage. And if it's on a Pi, a solar powered calculator outage at that. [0] What is the plural of Pi? Pis, Pies, Πs, or something else? Regardless: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/03/you-can-now-run-a-gpt-3-level-ai-model-on-your-laptop-phone-and-raspberry-pi/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/03/you-c...
- ChatGTP 3y agoCandles are hands free, and nice lighting. I don’t get why you’d try tell me a phone is “better”? A candle costs almost nothing and can also be useful to burn things. I know it seems hard to imagine now but bad shit will happen and why but have a few $1 candles in a survival kit in your house ? Seems like a no brainer.
- ben_w 3y agoCandles are more expensive than torches of similar luminosity (I've bought multiple extremely bright torches from PoundLand and EuroShop; can you even find a merely-one-candle-power torch in a pound-shop/dollar-store? Or anywhere else when torches are usually advertised by the biggest brightness number possible?) Candles are less hands-free than torches because they are a fire hazard when unattended; also, you can turn an iPhone light on or off with "hey Siri torch on" etc., unlike a candle where you need to find both it and the matches first before you get started, instead of simply vocalising in the darkness to summon forth illumination like a wizard. In fact, that fire hazard thing makes candles more likely to be the cause of rather than the solution to any serious problems I might face.
- ChatGTP 3y ago
- xiphias2 3y agoThe question makes sense: intelligence is getting commoditized faster than real human flesh. I was doing online dating for a long time, as I'm a shy guy, but I realized that it became so different from real life (and connections that I make there are so fake because everybody's incentivized to lie), that I need to stop using internet for socializing.
- liveoneggs 3y agoWhy do anything when someone on youtube is better at it? Play basketball? Ride a skateboard? Find a partner and make children? Speak words aloud? Play the guitar? forget it.
- j_shi 3y agoDisagree there are sacred timeless skills we ought to protect; tech has and will continue to reduce our need to spend mental bandwidth on skills Similar offline risk goes for all tech: navigation, generating energy, finding food & water. And as others have noted, like other personal tools, ai will become more portable and efficient (see progress on self hosted, minimal, efficiently trained models like Vicuna that are 92% parity with OpenAI fancy model)
- SamPatt 3y agoEven if we don't "need" to protect them, they'll be practiced somewhere. I can watch endless hours of people doing technically obsolete activities on YouTube right now.
- pmontra 3y agoHow about taking notes?
- never_inline 3y agoHumans used to do agriculture work and hunting. Now we don't need to do that, but we do exercise.