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> Freelance Programmer and Writer "I never thought the machines would come for MY job!" > Human skills, inquisitiveness and thirst for knowledge and craft wil

> Freelance Programmer and Writer "I never thought the machines would come for MY job!" > Human skills, inquisitiveness and thirst for knowledge and craft will eventually die off if all creative tasks are taken over by the machines. Consider the already degraded thirst for GK or General Knowledge ever since google search became a thing. There was a time once when kids used to watch the KBC Show (Indian adaptation of Who wants to be a Millionaire) with tremendous awe and enthusiasm, but no longer today. Today, a simple google search will tell them the correct answer for the quiz question, why bother with discussing the actual answer, the lore and the facts behind it, etc! What a classic "kids today" take. Paraphrasing: kids used to be so starved for access to knowledge they had to watch a for-profit TV show for little nuggets of trivia sprinkled between commercials, but today they have the entire world's knowledge at their fingertips in an instant so they don't bother with the trivia show. What a disaster! I think I get the point he's trying to make -- maybe one similar to the "no one debates trivia questions in person anymore, they just look up the answer on their phone" -- but I don't really think that's a very compelling condemnation of AI or technology in general. Increased access to knowledge is good, actually. Not that we haven't lost anything culturally, but the benefits are too great to justify sacrificing for nostalgia.

jwestbury 3y ago
> but the benefits are too great to justify sacrificing for nostalgia. I don't necessarily disagree - but I also don't think this is an obvious truth.
- redhale 3y ago
  Eh, I think if you put serious thought into what has been gained and what has been lost, it's hard to come to the conclusion that we should go backwards. Not saying that there is no legitimate criticism to be levied, but the nostalgia-driven takes generally don't stand up to scrutiny, in my opinion. And they are historically common. [0] [0] https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/kids-today-are-spoiled-a-brief-history-1895-2022.5112695/ https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/kids-today-are-spoiled... > New York Daily News, 7 August 1925 Are Children Today Spoiled By Luxuries? By David Belasco Are They Spoiled? Remove the girl or boy of today from radio, the telephone, the libraries, movies, and other forms of amusement and comfort -give them merely a jackknife and nature's unchanging wonders for amusement, and how would they fare? I fear me ennui would claim them for its own and that they would fare ill until returned to their accustomed habitat of convenience and plenty. Is too much luxury, too ready means of amusement, taking the truly American spirit of pioneering and invention out of the personalities of our children? Are we softening them mentally and spiritually because we do not make them understand and appreciate what civilization is doing for them as compared with those of but a few generations agone? One hopes not- but the fact remains that the youngster of the late eighteen hundreds was a pretty self-reliant American citizen...
  - AstralStorm 3y ago
    These days kids learn bushcraft for fun, not matter of survival. But things might change really really soon... What good is a jackknife when there's no water?

jwestbury 3y ago

> but the benefits are too great to justify sacrificing for nostalgia. I don't necessarily disagree - but I also don't think this is an obvious truth.

redhale 3y ago
Eh, I think if you put serious thought into what has been gained and what has been lost, it's hard to come to the conclusion that we should go backwards. Not saying that there is no legitimate criticism to be levied, but the nostalgia-driven takes generally don't stand up to scrutiny, in my opinion. And they are historically common. [0] [0] https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/kids-today-are-spoiled-a-brief-history-1895-2022.5112695/ https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/kids-today-are-spoiled... > New York Daily News, 7 August 1925 Are Children Today Spoiled By Luxuries? By David Belasco Are They Spoiled? Remove the girl or boy of today from radio, the telephone, the libraries, movies, and other forms of amusement and comfort -give them merely a jackknife and nature's unchanging wonders for amusement, and how would they fare? I fear me ennui would claim them for its own and that they would fare ill until returned to their accustomed habitat of convenience and plenty. Is too much luxury, too ready means of amusement, taking the truly American spirit of pioneering and invention out of the personalities of our children? Are we softening them mentally and spiritually because we do not make them understand and appreciate what civilization is doing for them as compared with those of but a few generations agone? One hopes not- but the fact remains that the youngster of the late eighteen hundreds was a pretty self-reliant American citizen...
- AstralStorm 3y ago
  These days kids learn bushcraft for fun, not matter of survival. But things might change really really soon... What good is a jackknife when there's no water?