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Anyone who needs to know more than the narrow middle of knowledge will seek it out. The real issue as I see it is people who have that kind of knowledge need t

Anyone who needs to know more than the narrow middle of knowledge will seek it out. The real issue as I see it is people who have that kind of knowledge need to share it and have it be seen by those who are interested in it. There’s a huge problem with search engines serving junk ‘narrow middle’ SEO-optimized content to the endless horde, as opposed to real, quality knowledge. This issue predated generative AI.

the_af 3y ago
> Anyone who needs to know more than the narrow middle of knowledge will seek it out. This is what happens now, but do we know it will remain so? If AI is carelessly integrated into the teaching loop, I suppose it may narrow the knowledge even there. And then, how will people know there's more to be known? And even outside formal teaching, how will regular people know there's more to be known beyond what AI tells them? How will you even know you "need to know more"? Who will tell you? Already we see a lot of what people "know" (about anything: biology, WW2, ancient history, politics, art) is mostly informed by Hollywood and internet-spread "pop knowledge" (directly or indirectly, as in watching a documentary or reading a newspaper article that were themselves informed by regurgitated "pop knowledge"). (In case anybody is wondering, I don't consider myself outside of this. I know I'm impacted!) So this phenomenon isn't new... but will AI make it worse?
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  The problem is that people assume others are too stupid for technical information. So its siloed. People in the field have learned to abrogate a search engine to return technical results (e.g. looking for direct links to documentation or using a search tool like google scholar to read scientific literature). However, most people aren’t taught these skills in the general sense. All they might know is that narrow scope written to a 6th grade reading level. On the other hand, if we are able to get more people ready access to the ground truth technical information on different topics to people instead of narrow scope information that often leaves you misinformed, I’d imagine that would kick start an untold era of innovation and progress for our species. Too bad using our computer networks to distribute advertising and propaganda is seen as more profitable than future advancements, that I guess must be liable to disrupt the profitable status quo.

the_af 3y ago

> Anyone who needs to know more than the narrow middle of knowledge will seek it out. This is what happens now, but do we know it will remain so? If AI is carelessly integrated into the teaching loop, I suppose it may narrow the knowledge even there. And then, how will people know there's more to be known? And even outside formal teaching, how will regular people know there's more to be known beyond what AI tells them? How will you even know you "need to know more"? Who will tell you? Already we see a lot of what people "know" (about anything: biology, WW2, ancient history, politics, art) is mostly informed by Hollywood and internet-spread "pop knowledge" (directly or indirectly, as in watching a documentary or reading a newspaper article that were themselves informed by regurgitated "pop knowledge"). (In case anybody is wondering, I don't consider myself outside of this. I know I'm impacted!) So this phenomenon isn't new... but will AI make it worse?

kjkjadksj 3y ago
The problem is that people assume others are too stupid for technical information. So its siloed. People in the field have learned to abrogate a search engine to return technical results (e.g. looking for direct links to documentation or using a search tool like google scholar to read scientific literature). However, most people aren’t taught these skills in the general sense. All they might know is that narrow scope written to a 6th grade reading level. On the other hand, if we are able to get more people ready access to the ground truth technical information on different topics to people instead of narrow scope information that often leaves you misinformed, I’d imagine that would kick start an untold era of innovation and progress for our species. Too bad using our computer networks to distribute advertising and propaganda is seen as more profitable than future advancements, that I guess must be liable to disrupt the profitable status quo.