6 ms·

It depends on your definition of smart. I think that holding a degree != smart.

aniviacat 2y ago
> I think that holding a degree != smart. Does this mean that these two sentences are completely unrelated and only happen to exist within the same paragraph? > Many smart humans fail at critical thinking. I've seen people with masters [...] I've understood you to use "people with masters" as an example of "smart humans".
- JCharante 2y ago
  Well the article began by talking about how before these data training companies would just hire generalists for $2/hr, but now they're hiring degree holders. And it mentions that smart people will be necessary. I'm just saying that degree holding != smart and it's a trap that those data training companies have to avoid.
aleph_minus_one 2y ago
> It depends on your definition of smart. I think that holding a degree != smart. You wrote: > I've seen people with masters fail at spotting hallucinations in elementary level word problems. I wanted to express that having a master in some (even complicated) subject does not make you a master at [pun intended] spotting hallucinations. To give evidence for this statement, I gave a different, more down-to-earth example of a similar situation.
- JCharante 2y ago
  It was a math problem, like this. Q: A farmer has 72 chickens. He sells 15 chickens at the market and buys 8 new chicks. Later that week, a fox sneaks into the coop and eats 6 chickens. How many chickens could the farmer sell at the market tomorrow? AI Answer: The farmer started with 72 chickens. After selling 15, he had 57 chickens left. Then he bought 8 new chicks, bringing the total to 65. Finally, the fox ate 6 chickens, so we subtract 6 from 65. This gives us 59 chickens. Therefore, the farmer now has 59 chickens that he could sell at the market tomorrow. -- You'd expect someone who can read/understand proofs to be able to spot a a flow in the logic that it takes longer than 1 week for chicks to turn into chickens.
  - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
    > You'd expect someone who can read/understand proofs to be able to spot a a flow in the logic that it takes longer than 1 week for chicks to turn into chickens. Rather, I'd assume that someone who is capable of spotting the flow in the logic has a decent knowledge of the English language (in this case referring to the difference in meaning between "chick" and "chicken"). Many people who are good mathematicians (i.e. capable of "reading/understanding proofs" as you expressed it) are not native English speakers or have a great L2 level of English.
    - Viliam1234 2y ago
      But I was told that humans have this thing called "general intelligence", which means they should be capable to do both math and English! If an AI made a similar mistake, people would laugh at it.
      - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
        > But I was told that humans have this thing called "general intelligence", which means they should be capable to do both math and English! You confuse "intelligence" with "knowledge". To keep to your example: there exist quite a lot of highly intelligent people on earth who don't or barely know English.
        david-gpu 2y ago
        Some native English speakers might still question that statement subconsciously, so let me make it clearer for them: there are many highly intelligent people in the world who don't speak the Rarámuri language.
    - JCharante 2y ago
      That’s also true and a HUGE problem when companies are hiring non native English speakers to work on English datasets.
  - jonahx 2y ago
spencerchubb 2y ago
Do you believe that holding a degree is dumb, or just that holding a degree is an insufficient condition for smartness? Technically what you wrote says the former
- JCharante 2y ago
  Thanks. I meant that holding a degree does not guarantee that you are smart.
  - bapr 2y ago
    Yeah it’s a virtue signal that one has written some language that doesn’t focus on first person anecdote. It’s a sign someone is a hard drive of prior knowledge. We leaned on spoken tradition education to pass down knowledge as written literacy, paper, writing tools were hard to come by until the last century. It was never about the student but the future. Still the same today; one student isn’t propping up reality. People think learning a linguistic style means discovery of net new knowledge.

> I think that holding a degree != smart. Does this mean that these two sentences are completely unrelated and only happen to exist within the same paragraph? > Many smart humans fail at critical thinking. I've seen people with masters [...] I've understood you to use "people with masters" as an example of "smart humans".

JCharante 2y ago
Well the article began by talking about how before these data training companies would just hire generalists for $2/hr, but now they're hiring degree holders. And it mentions that smart people will be necessary. I'm just saying that degree holding != smart and it's a trap that those data training companies have to avoid.

aleph_minus_one 2y ago

> It depends on your definition of smart. I think that holding a degree != smart. You wrote: > I've seen people with masters fail at spotting hallucinations in elementary level word problems. I wanted to express that having a master in some (even complicated) subject does not make you a master at [pun intended] spotting hallucinations. To give evidence for this statement, I gave a different, more down-to-earth example of a similar situation.

JCharante 2y ago
It was a math problem, like this. Q: A farmer has 72 chickens. He sells 15 chickens at the market and buys 8 new chicks. Later that week, a fox sneaks into the coop and eats 6 chickens. How many chickens could the farmer sell at the market tomorrow? AI Answer: The farmer started with 72 chickens. After selling 15, he had 57 chickens left. Then he bought 8 new chicks, bringing the total to 65. Finally, the fox ate 6 chickens, so we subtract 6 from 65. This gives us 59 chickens. Therefore, the farmer now has 59 chickens that he could sell at the market tomorrow. -- You'd expect someone who can read/understand proofs to be able to spot a a flow in the logic that it takes longer than 1 week for chicks to turn into chickens.
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago
  > You'd expect someone who can read/understand proofs to be able to spot a a flow in the logic that it takes longer than 1 week for chicks to turn into chickens. Rather, I'd assume that someone who is capable of spotting the flow in the logic has a decent knowledge of the English language (in this case referring to the difference in meaning between "chick" and "chicken"). Many people who are good mathematicians (i.e. capable of "reading/understanding proofs" as you expressed it) are not native English speakers or have a great L2 level of English.
  - Viliam1234 2y ago
    But I was told that humans have this thing called "general intelligence", which means they should be capable to do both math and English! If an AI made a similar mistake, people would laugh at it.
    - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
      > But I was told that humans have this thing called "general intelligence", which means they should be capable to do both math and English! You confuse "intelligence" with "knowledge". To keep to your example: there exist quite a lot of highly intelligent people on earth who don't or barely know English.
      - david-gpu 2y ago
        Some native English speakers might still question that statement subconsciously, so let me make it clearer for them: there are many highly intelligent people in the world who don't speak the Rarámuri language.
  - JCharante 2y ago
    That’s also true and a HUGE problem when companies are hiring non native English speakers to work on English datasets.
- jonahx 2y ago

spencerchubb 2y ago

Do you believe that holding a degree is dumb, or just that holding a degree is an insufficient condition for smartness? Technically what you wrote says the former

JCharante 2y ago
Thanks. I meant that holding a degree does not guarantee that you are smart.
- bapr 2y ago
  Yeah it’s a virtue signal that one has written some language that doesn’t focus on first person anecdote. It’s a sign someone is a hard drive of prior knowledge. We leaned on spoken tradition education to pass down knowledge as written literacy, paper, writing tools were hard to come by until the last century. It was never about the student but the future. Still the same today; one student isn’t propping up reality. People think learning a linguistic style means discovery of net new knowledge.