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The problem with this sort of comparison is that up until now, new ideas came from humans and technology advances merely helped to spread ideas, or greased the

The problem with this sort of comparison is that up until now, new ideas came from humans and technology advances merely helped to spread ideas, or greased the wheels. Now you can generate new ideas. Often without any skill of your own. This is bad at first glance because look what happened when smart phones became popular: no one remembers phone numbers of their family, people can’t remember directions when driving. Now you don’t even need the ability to generate ideas. And it’s not clear to me that LLMs democratises information. LLM have guard rails, are potentially trained on copyrighted data. Need to be run by large companies…

version_five 3y ago
> when smart phones became popular: no one remembers phone numbers of their family, people can’t remember directions when driving. This is a concern, though I'd argue unrelated to the concern about people no longer contributing publicly online, and one that was already present with SO. I've seen SO posts specifically reference or criticize the "copy paste" crowd that is just taking the answer and putting it into their code without thought. Some people will use any technology blindly.
- selestify 3y ago
  Why is that a concern? When’s the last time you needed to remember a phone number or directions for travel?
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    Because of the implied effect on things like attention span, memory, and cognition in general. It's the same reason that mastering fundamental mathematics is critical, even though we have calculators. Trends in the Flynn Effect are relevant here. [1] The Flynn Effect is the observation that "real" IQ values were increasing, dramatically, for decades. In recent decades (since births in ~1970), this effect has not only decreased but reversed in the West. And it cannot be explained by dysgenics alone, since it even shows up in same-family cohorts. That suggests environmental causes are likely playing some role. Those coming to adulthood in the 90s were the first generation to really get to experience mass, endless, and cheap dopamine driven digital entertainment. Notably the [positive] Flynn effect is still in full swing in places like China and India, where digital entertainment market saturation has taken longer. So they'll effectively work as perfect experiments. If it reverses over the coming decades, as everybody over in these places now has their heads shoved in e.g. smart phones as much as anywhere else, it should be telling. [1] - https://www.sciencealert.com/iq-scores-falling-in-worrying-reversal-20th-century-intelligence-boom-flynn-effect-intelligence https://www.sciencealert.com/iq-scores-falling-in-worrying-r...
    - selestify 3y ago
      What reasons are there to think that the reversed Flynn effect comes from a lack of memorization of rote knowledge like phone numbers, as opposed to attention-sucking social media apps?
  - fragmede 3y ago
    That's the point. People used to be able to memorize 7 digit numbers and now we can't because we don't have to. Where the brain is a muscle, it's atrophying. Those parts of the brain aren't being exercised and used, so we're getting dumber. Individually and as a society. The fear is that this will become an impediment to progress.
hdior 3y ago
Skill generating ideas is over rated. Implementation is when skill matters. I can imagine post scarcity Star Trek like ideas but not implement them. My skills at CE and SWE allow me to implement reasonable solutions there. Chasing ideas for the sake of chasing ideas is a form of bike shedding and premature optimization.
- 2muchcoffeeman 3y ago
  You can only say this right now where there are an abundance of ideas and less skill to implement them. But even implementation requires creative thinking and the ability to generate ideas. Now we want to take away the need for the first part. This is NOT like going from handwriting to printing or radio to TV. Something new is going on. I use ChatGPT for work in a limited way. If you haven’t tried it, I suggest that you do. This potentially paradigm shifting technology.
  - hdior 3y ago
    We could say this for a long time now; all the historical squabbles over religious story is evidence useless ideation is an innate human feature that wastes time/resources, and the advancement of skill at implementation is what’s actually improved our day to day.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 3y ago
      That's a bit of a leap. Because one set of ideas were wrong therefore having ideas is useless? Even those wrong ideas generated new and useful ideas. I also don't understand how you intend to improve implementation without having more ideas.

version_five 3y ago

> when smart phones became popular: no one remembers phone numbers of their family, people can’t remember directions when driving. This is a concern, though I'd argue unrelated to the concern about people no longer contributing publicly online, and one that was already present with SO. I've seen SO posts specifically reference or criticize the "copy paste" crowd that is just taking the answer and putting it into their code without thought. Some people will use any technology blindly.

selestify 3y ago
Why is that a concern? When’s the last time you needed to remember a phone number or directions for travel?
- somenameforme 3y ago
  Because of the implied effect on things like attention span, memory, and cognition in general. It's the same reason that mastering fundamental mathematics is critical, even though we have calculators. Trends in the Flynn Effect are relevant here. [1] The Flynn Effect is the observation that "real" IQ values were increasing, dramatically, for decades. In recent decades (since births in ~1970), this effect has not only decreased but reversed in the West. And it cannot be explained by dysgenics alone, since it even shows up in same-family cohorts. That suggests environmental causes are likely playing some role. Those coming to adulthood in the 90s were the first generation to really get to experience mass, endless, and cheap dopamine driven digital entertainment. Notably the [positive] Flynn effect is still in full swing in places like China and India, where digital entertainment market saturation has taken longer. So they'll effectively work as perfect experiments. If it reverses over the coming decades, as everybody over in these places now has their heads shoved in e.g. smart phones as much as anywhere else, it should be telling. [1] - https://www.sciencealert.com/iq-scores-falling-in-worrying-reversal-20th-century-intelligence-boom-flynn-effect-intelligence https://www.sciencealert.com/iq-scores-falling-in-worrying-r...
  - selestify 3y ago
    What reasons are there to think that the reversed Flynn effect comes from a lack of memorization of rote knowledge like phone numbers, as opposed to attention-sucking social media apps?
- fragmede 3y ago
  That's the point. People used to be able to memorize 7 digit numbers and now we can't because we don't have to. Where the brain is a muscle, it's atrophying. Those parts of the brain aren't being exercised and used, so we're getting dumber. Individually and as a society. The fear is that this will become an impediment to progress.

hdior 3y ago

Skill generating ideas is over rated. Implementation is when skill matters. I can imagine post scarcity Star Trek like ideas but not implement them. My skills at CE and SWE allow me to implement reasonable solutions there. Chasing ideas for the sake of chasing ideas is a form of bike shedding and premature optimization.

2muchcoffeeman 3y ago
You can only say this right now where there are an abundance of ideas and less skill to implement them. But even implementation requires creative thinking and the ability to generate ideas. Now we want to take away the need for the first part. This is NOT like going from handwriting to printing or radio to TV. Something new is going on. I use ChatGPT for work in a limited way. If you haven’t tried it, I suggest that you do. This potentially paradigm shifting technology.
- hdior 3y ago
  We could say this for a long time now; all the historical squabbles over religious story is evidence useless ideation is an innate human feature that wastes time/resources, and the advancement of skill at implementation is what’s actually improved our day to day.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 3y ago
    That's a bit of a leap. Because one set of ideas were wrong therefore having ideas is useless? Even those wrong ideas generated new and useful ideas. I also don't understand how you intend to improve implementation without having more ideas.