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Absolutely agreed. I find it embarrassing how STEM devalued non-STEM studies for years, and now that LLMs are center stage, so is the near-universal unpreparedn

Absolutely agreed. I find it embarrassing how STEM devalued non-STEM studies for years, and now that LLMs are center stage, so is the near-universal unpreparedness of interested parties and stakeholders to wrestle with issues of cognition, consciousness, and ethics. This, despite literally thousands of years of prior studies on these matters. Even now, I see basic refusal to engage with this extant literature, and a strong preference to just making shit up as if it's the first time anyone has anything interesting to say on these matters. Again, embarrassing. The industry is totally unprepared on an intellectual basis to wrestle with these issues.

doublepg23 3y ago
Are the STEM educated thinkers publishing AI doomsday think pieces or is it the supposedly enlightened non-STEM journalists?
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  Doesn't have to be 'doomsday'. Plenty of 'stem' thinkers expound on 'what is consciousness' by re-hashing old ideas as if they just occurred to them. It goes back to the old quote ~ "Stephen Hawking famously wrote that “philosophy is dead” because the big questions that used to be discussed by philosophers are now in the hands of physicist" And then the follow up, "physicists then proceed to re-invent bad philosophy"(unknown). The math behind the stealth bomber sat on a bookshelf for decades before someone realized what it could be used for. In STEM education, there should be some attempt at a 'rear view mirror', to know what has come before. AI is just the latest obvious area.
  - practicemaths 3y ago
    I suppose for meeting Gen. Ed. requirements more history and philosophy classes with a focus on where certain Math and Science comes from could be great. Additionally math courses for the non-stem majors that focus more on the history and importance of something, say the quadratic formula, instead of applying it/remembering it without much context from where it came from could help out a lot of non-stem majors with their math requirement. However I think it boils down to interest and a degree of time whether or not someone in a stem field feels compelled or not to pay attention and learn where their math tools come from or the experiments that built the respective sciences. That is, I've found while stem classes may not focus on the above, they do cover it and for the more enthusiastic and self motivated student right there in their books to read about. I've also found professor's that love this stuff too, which I've found pleasure in them sharing these stories when they can.
- pineaux 3y ago
  I¹ get it. The STEM educated people are better at technical stuff like math and logic, thus they must be a lot more enlightened than these non-STEM journalists that walk around in the darkness of the intellectual void. We smart, They stupid. /s You should ask yourself where this arrogance stems (so punny) from. Although you could argue that the liberal arts/humanities are stifled by leftist worldviews, which is true, I also believe that the study of the humanities is the one thing that created the societal structures -like democracy and education- that we cherish today and I believe they will be crucial for a nice non-authoritarian future. And the ideological pressure to discredit the humanities is something that I believe comes from a pro-authoritarian, conservative side of the political field. ¹STEM-educated (molecular biology, with a focus on computational analysis)
  - VirusNewbie 3y ago
    I find it very suspicious that people who avoid learning rhetoric, or formal logic, or axiomatic thinking in general, are able to draw useful conclusions from studying humanities.
    - ryanklee 3y ago
      I think you are putting words in GP's mouth. They never said anything about avoiding learning formal logic or math. The context of that statement was a sarcastic position.
      - VirusNewbie 3y ago
        You misunderstood, I was criticizing the majority of people who study humanities in college, because they don’t have the requisite skills to make valid conclusions about what they are learning.
        ryanklee 3y ago
        And you think that those individuals are representative of the value of the field of humanities? Sorry, but that's just a red herring. I mean, I'm suspicious of individuals who can't hack it in general, too, but not sure how that's relevant.
thriftwy 3y ago
LLMs should requalify Liberal Arts education. The people who can ask questions and understand answers are quite relevant now, seeing how STEM worldview is in many ways no longer relevant. SDEs should double down on soft skills now, since these are as useful with LLMs as with people.
dnissley 3y ago
> STEM devalued non-STEM studies for years What does this refer to?
- tempodox 3y ago
  History, for instance, is not part of STEM.
  - robotresearcher 3y ago
    Have you heard of Newton, Pascal, Maxwell, Leibniz, Pythagoras, Einstein, Aristotle, Curie, and Turing? Do you know what they did and a little about their lives? They were likely all dead before you were born. Do you know some things about the Manhattan Project, Bell Labs, Bletchley Park, the Apollo Project, the Gutenberg press, the invention of carbon steel? That’s history.
    - ryanklee 3y ago
      He is referencing the field of History, not history.
      - robotresearcher 3y ago
        I do not understand the distinction. I’ll go further. If I said ‘he was referencing Science, not science’ would that make any sense? I was a CS professor for a long time. Like many of my STEM colleagues, I taught the history of the ideas in my discipline as an intrinsic and important part of the curriculum. It’s also good pedagogy, since the long process of getting closer to the truth or developing more powerful technology is part of the toolbox we are trying to impart.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        ryanklee 3y ago
        The commenter's point is that History as an academic discipline organized by institutions is part of the humanities departments. It's not a deeper point. Of course science has its own history and that history is examined (sometimes) in the course of scientific education. That's not what's at issue. What's at issue is that History as a subject and other Humanities disciplines are systematically devalued in STEM disciplines and by scientific cultural mouthpieces and participants in STEM endeavors.
johngossman 3y ago
This made me go look up whether STEM includes psychology and medicine. Wikipedia says "depends how you ask." In any case, William James trained to be a doctor and is considered the father of American psychology. If you've read any of his stuff, he was certainly not science illiterate. Which is not to say I disagree with your point. However, it turns out a lot of people, especially the really smart ones we've all heard about, aren't easily characterized as STEM or non-STEM. That includes all the AI researchers I know.
zo1 3y ago
This is because the humanities got taken over in some sense and filled with mumbo jumbo. Technical people don't want to touch that with a ten foot pole. Besides, science used to be very much a "thinkers" only thing, because only those people went into studies instead of just being laborers. These were people that would question and ponder the things you mention. These days, STEM is filled with factory widget repeaters that are taught to regurgitate the syllabus and apply it in context so they can be good workers.
- ryanklee 3y ago
  > humanities got taken over in some sense and filled with mumbo jumbo This is exactly the kind of opinion that results from improper familiarization with the various sub-fields of the humanities. Is there bullshit? Yes. Is it typical? Absolutely not.

doublepg23 3y ago

Are the STEM educated thinkers publishing AI doomsday think pieces or is it the supposedly enlightened non-STEM journalists?

FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Doesn't have to be 'doomsday'. Plenty of 'stem' thinkers expound on 'what is consciousness' by re-hashing old ideas as if they just occurred to them. It goes back to the old quote ~ "Stephen Hawking famously wrote that “philosophy is dead” because the big questions that used to be discussed by philosophers are now in the hands of physicist" And then the follow up, "physicists then proceed to re-invent bad philosophy"(unknown). The math behind the stealth bomber sat on a bookshelf for decades before someone realized what it could be used for. In STEM education, there should be some attempt at a 'rear view mirror', to know what has come before. AI is just the latest obvious area.
- practicemaths 3y ago
  I suppose for meeting Gen. Ed. requirements more history and philosophy classes with a focus on where certain Math and Science comes from could be great. Additionally math courses for the non-stem majors that focus more on the history and importance of something, say the quadratic formula, instead of applying it/remembering it without much context from where it came from could help out a lot of non-stem majors with their math requirement. However I think it boils down to interest and a degree of time whether or not someone in a stem field feels compelled or not to pay attention and learn where their math tools come from or the experiments that built the respective sciences. That is, I've found while stem classes may not focus on the above, they do cover it and for the more enthusiastic and self motivated student right there in their books to read about. I've also found professor's that love this stuff too, which I've found pleasure in them sharing these stories when they can.
pineaux 3y ago
I¹ get it. The STEM educated people are better at technical stuff like math and logic, thus they must be a lot more enlightened than these non-STEM journalists that walk around in the darkness of the intellectual void. We smart, They stupid. /s You should ask yourself where this arrogance stems (so punny) from. Although you could argue that the liberal arts/humanities are stifled by leftist worldviews, which is true, I also believe that the study of the humanities is the one thing that created the societal structures -like democracy and education- that we cherish today and I believe they will be crucial for a nice non-authoritarian future. And the ideological pressure to discredit the humanities is something that I believe comes from a pro-authoritarian, conservative side of the political field. ¹STEM-educated (molecular biology, with a focus on computational analysis)
- VirusNewbie 3y ago
  I find it very suspicious that people who avoid learning rhetoric, or formal logic, or axiomatic thinking in general, are able to draw useful conclusions from studying humanities.
  - ryanklee 3y ago
    I think you are putting words in GP's mouth. They never said anything about avoiding learning formal logic or math. The context of that statement was a sarcastic position.
    - VirusNewbie 3y ago
      You misunderstood, I was criticizing the majority of people who study humanities in college, because they don’t have the requisite skills to make valid conclusions about what they are learning.
      - ryanklee 3y ago
        And you think that those individuals are representative of the value of the field of humanities? Sorry, but that's just a red herring. I mean, I'm suspicious of individuals who can't hack it in general, too, but not sure how that's relevant.

thriftwy 3y ago

LLMs should requalify Liberal Arts education. The people who can ask questions and understand answers are quite relevant now, seeing how STEM worldview is in many ways no longer relevant. SDEs should double down on soft skills now, since these are as useful with LLMs as with people.

dnissley 3y ago

> STEM devalued non-STEM studies for years What does this refer to?

tempodox 3y ago
History, for instance, is not part of STEM.
- robotresearcher 3y ago
  Have you heard of Newton, Pascal, Maxwell, Leibniz, Pythagoras, Einstein, Aristotle, Curie, and Turing? Do you know what they did and a little about their lives? They were likely all dead before you were born. Do you know some things about the Manhattan Project, Bell Labs, Bletchley Park, the Apollo Project, the Gutenberg press, the invention of carbon steel? That’s history.
  - ryanklee 3y ago
    He is referencing the field of History, not history.
    - robotresearcher 3y ago
      I do not understand the distinction. I’ll go further. If I said ‘he was referencing Science, not science’ would that make any sense? I was a CS professor for a long time. Like many of my STEM colleagues, I taught the history of the ideas in my discipline as an intrinsic and important part of the curriculum. It’s also good pedagogy, since the long process of getting closer to the truth or developing more powerful technology is part of the toolbox we are trying to impart.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - ryanklee 3y ago
        The commenter's point is that History as an academic discipline organized by institutions is part of the humanities departments. It's not a deeper point. Of course science has its own history and that history is examined (sometimes) in the course of scientific education. That's not what's at issue. What's at issue is that History as a subject and other Humanities disciplines are systematically devalued in STEM disciplines and by scientific cultural mouthpieces and participants in STEM endeavors.

johngossman 3y ago

This made me go look up whether STEM includes psychology and medicine. Wikipedia says "depends how you ask." In any case, William James trained to be a doctor and is considered the father of American psychology. If you've read any of his stuff, he was certainly not science illiterate. Which is not to say I disagree with your point. However, it turns out a lot of people, especially the really smart ones we've all heard about, aren't easily characterized as STEM or non-STEM. That includes all the AI researchers I know.

zo1 3y ago

This is because the humanities got taken over in some sense and filled with mumbo jumbo. Technical people don't want to touch that with a ten foot pole. Besides, science used to be very much a "thinkers" only thing, because only those people went into studies instead of just being laborers. These were people that would question and ponder the things you mention. These days, STEM is filled with factory widget repeaters that are taught to regurgitate the syllabus and apply it in context so they can be good workers.

ryanklee 3y ago
> humanities got taken over in some sense and filled with mumbo jumbo This is exactly the kind of opinion that results from improper familiarization with the various sub-fields of the humanities. Is there bullshit? Yes. Is it typical? Absolutely not.