7 ms·

AI is a tool, and tool use is not lazy.

by 0x1062 2y ago

GlacierFox 2y ago
The point he's making is, we still have to learn to use tools no? There still had to he some knowledge there or else you're just sat sifting through all the crap the AI spits out endlessly for the rest of your life. The op wrote his comment like it's a complete replacement rather than an enhancement.
saagarjha 2y ago
Tool use can make you lazy if you're not careful.
4ndr3vv 2y ago
You could similarly consider driving a car as "a tool that helps me get to X quicker". Now tell me cars don't make you lazy.
eviks 2y ago
It is if the way to learn is doing it without a tool. Imagine using a robot to lift weights if you want to grow your own muscle mass. "Robot is a tool"
- logicchains 2y ago
  When you go for a job as a forklift operator, nobody asks you to demonstrate how you can manually carry a load of timber.
  - eviks 2y ago
    You forgot a second sentence that completes the logic chain. Yes, "some tools are useful for some work", so what? That wasn't the original claim...
    - logicchains 2y ago
      The claim was that it's lazy to use a tool as a substitute for learning how to do something yourself. But when the tool entirely obviates the need for doing the task yourself, you don't need to be able to do it yourself to do the job. It doesn't matter if a forklift driver isn't strong enough to manually carry a load, similarly once AI is good enough it won't matter if a developer doesn't know how to write all the code an AI wrote for them, what matters is that they can produce code that fulfills requirements, regardless of how that code is produced.
      - skissane 2y ago
        > once AI is good enough it won't matter if a developer doesn't know how to write all the code an AI wrote for them, what matters is that they can produce code that fulfills requirements, regardless of how that code is produced. Once AI is that good, the developer won't have a job any more.
        necovek 2y ago
        The whole question is if the AI will ever get that good? All evidence so far points to no (just like with every tool — farmers are still usually strong men even if they've got tractors that are thousands of times stronger than any human), but that still leaves a bunch of non-great programmers out of a job.
  - oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
    Equally, if you just point to your friend and say "that's Dave, he's gonna do it for me", they won't give you the job. They'll give it to Dave instead.
  - necovek 2y ago
    That much is true, but I've seen a forklift operator face a situation where pallet of products fell apart and heavy items ended up on the floor. Guess who was in charge of picking them up and manually shelving them?
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  "Growing your own muscle mass" is an artificial goal that exists because of tools. Our bodies evolved under the background assumption that daily back-breaking labor is necessary for survival, and rely on it to stay in good operating conditions. We've since all but eliminated most of that labor for most people - so now we're forced to engage in otherwise pointless activity called "exercise" that's physically hard on purpose, to synthesize physical exertion that no longer happens naturally. So obviously, your goal is strictly to exert your body, you have to... exert your body. However, if your goal is anything else, then physical effort is not strictly required, and for many people, for many reasons, is often undesirable. Hence machines.
  - mightysashiman 2y ago
    Said no one with ever with a even remote knowledge in healthy benefits of fitness.
    - necovek 2y ago
      Fitness does not equal physical exercise. It could be a simple lifestyle that makes you "fit" (lots of walking, working a not-too-demanding physical job, a physical hobby, biking around...). The parent post is saying that technological advance has removed the need for physical activity to survive, but all of the gym rats have come out of the woodwork to complain how we are all going to die if we don't hit the gym, pronto.
  - BoiledCabbage 2y ago
    And guess what, people's overall health and fitness have declined. Obesity is at an all time high. If you're in the US, there is a 40% chance you are obese. Your body likely contains very little muscle mass, you are extremely likely to die of side effects of metabolic syndrome. People are seeing the advent of machines to replace all physical labor and transportation, not gradually like in the 20th century, but withing the span of a decade going from the average physical exertion of 1900 to the average modern lack of physical exertion, take a car everyday, do no manual labor do no movement. They are saying that you need exercise to replace what you are losing, you need to train your body to keep it healthy and can't just rly on machines/robots to do everything for them because your body needs that exertion - and your answer is to say "now that we have robots there is no need to exercise even for exercise sake". A point that's pretty much wrong as modern day physical health shows. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_syndrome
- necovek 2y ago
  Incidentally, there are things like these: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6104107/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6104107/ Your favourite online store is full of devices that'd help there, and they are used in physical therapy too.
Matthyze 2y ago
Tools can be crutches — useful but ultimately inhibitory to developing advanced skill.
numpad0 2y ago
AI companies don't think so, is clearly the implication.
mathieuh 2y ago
I think it's a lot more complicated than that. I think it can be used as a tool for people who already have knowledge and skills, but I do worry how it will affect people growing up with it. Personally I see it more like going to someone who (claims) to know what they're doing and asking them to do it for me. I might be able to watch them at work and maybe get a very general idea of what they're doing but will I actually learn something? I don't think so. Now, we may point to the fact that previous generations railed at the degeneration of youth through things like pocket calculators or mobile phones but I think there is a massive difference between these things and so-called AI. Where those things were tools obligatorily (if you give a calculator to someone who doesn't know any formulae it will be useless to them), I think so-called AI can just jump straight to giving you the answer. I personally believe that there are necessary steps that must be passed through to really obtain knowledge and I don't think so-called AI takes you through those steps. I think it will result in a generation of people with markedly fewer and shallower skills than the generations that came before.
- necovek 2y ago
  I think you are both right. AI will let some people conquer skills otherwise out of their reach, with all the pros and cons of that. It is exactly like the example someone else brought up of not needing to know assembly anymore with higher level languages: true, but those who do know it and can internalize how the machines operate have an easier time when it comes to figuring out the real hard problems and bugs they might hit. Which means that you only need to learn machine language and assembly superficially, and you have a good chance of being a very good programmer. However, where I am unsure how the things will unfold is that humans are constantly coming up with different programming languages, frameworks, patterns, because none of the existing ones really fit their mental model or are too much to learn about. Which — to me at least — hints at what I've long claimed: programming is more art than science. With complex interactions between a gazillion of mildly incompatible systems, even more so. As such, for someone with strong fundamentals, AI tools never provided much of a boon to me (yet). Incidentally, neither did StackOverflow ever help me: I never found a problem that I struggled with that wasn't easily solved with reading the upstream docs or upstream code, and when neither was available or good enough, SO was mostly crickets too. These days, I rarely do "gruntwork" programming, and only get called in on really hard problems, so the question switches to: how will we train the next generation of software engineers who are going to be called in for those hard problems? Because let's admit it, even today, not everybody can handle them.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
waste_monk 2y ago
Tool use is fine, when you have the education and experience to use the tools properly, and to troubleshoot and recover when things go wrong. The use of AI is not just a labour saving device, it allows the user to bypass thinking and learning. It robs the user of an opportunity to grow. If you don't have the experience to know better it may be able to masquerade as a teacher and a problem solver, but beyond a trivial level relying on it is actively harmful to one's education. At some point the user will encounter a problem that has no existing answer in the AI's training dataset, and come to realise they have no real foundation to rely on. Code generative AI, as it currently exists, is a poisoned chalice.
antihipocrat 2y ago
Using the wrong tool for the job required isn't lazy but it may be dangerous, inefficient and ultimately more expensive.
Fricken 2y ago
Tools help us to put layers of abstraction between us and our goals. when things become too abstracted we lose sight of what we're really doing or why. Tools allow us to feel smart and productive while acting stupidly, and against our best interests. So we get fascism and catastrophic climate change, stuff like that. Tools create dependencies. We can't imagine life without our tools. "We shape our tools and our tools in turn shape us" said Marshall McLuhan.
Ekaros 2y ago
For learning it can very well be. And also it really depends on the tool and task. Calculator is fine tool. But symbolic solver might be a few steps too far. If you don't already understand the process. And possibly the start and end points. Problem with AI is that it is often black box tool. And not even deterministic one.
- necovek 2y ago
  AI as applied today is pretty deterministic. It does get retrained and tuned often in most common applications like ChatGPT, but without any changes, you should expect a deterministic answer.
sarchertech 2y ago
Copying and pasting from stack overflow is a tool. It’s fine to do in some cases, but it certainly gets abused by lazy incurious people. Tool use in general certainly can be lazy. A car is a tool, but most people would call an able bodied person driving their car to the end of the driveway to get the mail lazy.

AI is a tool, and tool use is not lazy.

by 0x1062 2y ago

AI is a tool, and tool use is not lazy.

The point he's making is, we still have to learn to use tools no? There still had to he some knowledge there or else you're just sat sifting through all the crap the AI spits out endlessly for the rest of your life. The op wrote his comment like it's a complete replacement rather than an enhancement.

saagarjha 2y ago

Tool use can make you lazy if you're not careful.

4ndr3vv 2y ago

You could similarly consider driving a car as "a tool that helps me get to X quicker". Now tell me cars don't make you lazy.

eviks 2y ago

It is if the way to learn is doing it without a tool. Imagine using a robot to lift weights if you want to grow your own muscle mass. "Robot is a tool"

logicchains 2y ago
When you go for a job as a forklift operator, nobody asks you to demonstrate how you can manually carry a load of timber.
- eviks 2y ago
  You forgot a second sentence that completes the logic chain. Yes, "some tools are useful for some work", so what? That wasn't the original claim...
  - logicchains 2y ago
    The claim was that it's lazy to use a tool as a substitute for learning how to do something yourself. But when the tool entirely obviates the need for doing the task yourself, you don't need to be able to do it yourself to do the job. It doesn't matter if a forklift driver isn't strong enough to manually carry a load, similarly once AI is good enough it won't matter if a developer doesn't know how to write all the code an AI wrote for them, what matters is that they can produce code that fulfills requirements, regardless of how that code is produced.
    - skissane 2y ago
      > once AI is good enough it won't matter if a developer doesn't know how to write all the code an AI wrote for them, what matters is that they can produce code that fulfills requirements, regardless of how that code is produced. Once AI is that good, the developer won't have a job any more.
      - necovek 2y ago
        The whole question is if the AI will ever get that good? All evidence so far points to no (just like with every tool — farmers are still usually strong men even if they've got tractors that are thousands of times stronger than any human), but that still leaves a bunch of non-great programmers out of a job.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
  Equally, if you just point to your friend and say "that's Dave, he's gonna do it for me", they won't give you the job. They'll give it to Dave instead.
- necovek 2y ago
  That much is true, but I've seen a forklift operator face a situation where pallet of products fell apart and heavy items ended up on the floor. Guess who was in charge of picking them up and manually shelving them?
TeMPOraL 2y ago
"Growing your own muscle mass" is an artificial goal that exists because of tools. Our bodies evolved under the background assumption that daily back-breaking labor is necessary for survival, and rely on it to stay in good operating conditions. We've since all but eliminated most of that labor for most people - so now we're forced to engage in otherwise pointless activity called "exercise" that's physically hard on purpose, to synthesize physical exertion that no longer happens naturally. So obviously, your goal is strictly to exert your body, you have to... exert your body. However, if your goal is anything else, then physical effort is not strictly required, and for many people, for many reasons, is often undesirable. Hence machines.
- mightysashiman 2y ago
  Said no one with ever with a even remote knowledge in healthy benefits of fitness.
  - necovek 2y ago
    Fitness does not equal physical exercise. It could be a simple lifestyle that makes you "fit" (lots of walking, working a not-too-demanding physical job, a physical hobby, biking around...). The parent post is saying that technological advance has removed the need for physical activity to survive, but all of the gym rats have come out of the woodwork to complain how we are all going to die if we don't hit the gym, pronto.
- BoiledCabbage 2y ago
  And guess what, people's overall health and fitness have declined. Obesity is at an all time high. If you're in the US, there is a 40% chance you are obese. Your body likely contains very little muscle mass, you are extremely likely to die of side effects of metabolic syndrome. People are seeing the advent of machines to replace all physical labor and transportation, not gradually like in the 20th century, but withing the span of a decade going from the average physical exertion of 1900 to the average modern lack of physical exertion, take a car everyday, do no manual labor do no movement. They are saying that you need exercise to replace what you are losing, you need to train your body to keep it healthy and can't just rly on machines/robots to do everything for them because your body needs that exertion - and your answer is to say "now that we have robots there is no need to exercise even for exercise sake". A point that's pretty much wrong as modern day physical health shows. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_syndrome
necovek 2y ago
Incidentally, there are things like these: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6104107/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6104107/ Your favourite online store is full of devices that'd help there, and they are used in physical therapy too.

Matthyze 2y ago

Tools can be crutches — useful but ultimately inhibitory to developing advanced skill.

numpad0 2y ago

AI companies don't think so, is clearly the implication.

mathieuh 2y ago

I think it's a lot more complicated than that. I think it can be used as a tool for people who already have knowledge and skills, but I do worry how it will affect people growing up with it. Personally I see it more like going to someone who (claims) to know what they're doing and asking them to do it for me. I might be able to watch them at work and maybe get a very general idea of what they're doing but will I actually learn something? I don't think so. Now, we may point to the fact that previous generations railed at the degeneration of youth through things like pocket calculators or mobile phones but I think there is a massive difference between these things and so-called AI. Where those things were tools obligatorily (if you give a calculator to someone who doesn't know any formulae it will be useless to them), I think so-called AI can just jump straight to giving you the answer. I personally believe that there are necessary steps that must be passed through to really obtain knowledge and I don't think so-called AI takes you through those steps. I think it will result in a generation of people with markedly fewer and shallower skills than the generations that came before.

necovek 2y ago
I think you are both right. AI will let some people conquer skills otherwise out of their reach, with all the pros and cons of that. It is exactly like the example someone else brought up of not needing to know assembly anymore with higher level languages: true, but those who do know it and can internalize how the machines operate have an easier time when it comes to figuring out the real hard problems and bugs they might hit. Which means that you only need to learn machine language and assembly superficially, and you have a good chance of being a very good programmer. However, where I am unsure how the things will unfold is that humans are constantly coming up with different programming languages, frameworks, patterns, because none of the existing ones really fit their mental model or are too much to learn about. Which — to me at least — hints at what I've long claimed: programming is more art than science. With complex interactions between a gazillion of mildly incompatible systems, even more so. As such, for someone with strong fundamentals, AI tools never provided much of a boon to me (yet). Incidentally, neither did StackOverflow ever help me: I never found a problem that I struggled with that wasn't easily solved with reading the upstream docs or upstream code, and when neither was available or good enough, SO was mostly crickets too. These days, I rarely do "gruntwork" programming, and only get called in on really hard problems, so the question switches to: how will we train the next generation of software engineers who are going to be called in for those hard problems? Because let's admit it, even today, not everybody can handle them.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

waste_monk 2y ago

Tool use is fine, when you have the education and experience to use the tools properly, and to troubleshoot and recover when things go wrong. The use of AI is not just a labour saving device, it allows the user to bypass thinking and learning. It robs the user of an opportunity to grow. If you don't have the experience to know better it may be able to masquerade as a teacher and a problem solver, but beyond a trivial level relying on it is actively harmful to one's education. At some point the user will encounter a problem that has no existing answer in the AI's training dataset, and come to realise they have no real foundation to rely on. Code generative AI, as it currently exists, is a poisoned chalice.

antihipocrat 2y ago

Using the wrong tool for the job required isn't lazy but it may be dangerous, inefficient and ultimately more expensive.

Fricken 2y ago

Tools help us to put layers of abstraction between us and our goals. when things become too abstracted we lose sight of what we're really doing or why. Tools allow us to feel smart and productive while acting stupidly, and against our best interests. So we get fascism and catastrophic climate change, stuff like that. Tools create dependencies. We can't imagine life without our tools. "We shape our tools and our tools in turn shape us" said Marshall McLuhan.

Ekaros 2y ago

For learning it can very well be. And also it really depends on the tool and task. Calculator is fine tool. But symbolic solver might be a few steps too far. If you don't already understand the process. And possibly the start and end points. Problem with AI is that it is often black box tool. And not even deterministic one.

necovek 2y ago
AI as applied today is pretty deterministic. It does get retrained and tuned often in most common applications like ChatGPT, but without any changes, you should expect a deterministic answer.

sarchertech 2y ago

Copying and pasting from stack overflow is a tool. It’s fine to do in some cases, but it certainly gets abused by lazy incurious people. Tool use in general certainly can be lazy. A car is a tool, but most people would call an able bodied person driving their car to the end of the driveway to get the mail lazy.