23 ms·

> Ie “use it or loose it” kind of vibe. > That’s why one of the possible threats of AI is if one would “forget” how to reason. Or even worse: brain rewires its

by bavell 1y ago

> Ie “use it or loose it” kind of vibe. > That’s why one of the possible threats of AI is if one would “forget” how to reason. Or even worse: brain rewires itself to never being able to reason again. The "WALL-E/Idiocracy"-ification of humanity. It won't get so bad that we lose our ability to reason, but we're definitely losing something. Perhaps it's just our inevitable evolution.

djtango 1y ago
The Roman legion marched up to 3mph, 18 miles a day bearing up to 70lbs. They did this on considerably less nutrition and with smaller frames than your average American today. The average human doesn't need to be that fit and strong anymore. Just like the future human won't need to be so intelligent anymore. And yet it feels like maybe we shouldn't be giving that up so easily...
- sublinear 1y ago
  > The average human doesn't need to be that fit and strong anymore. Just like the future human won't need to be so intelligent anymore. I disagree. What saved us from physical toil was not physical fitness, but ingenuity. What keeps the world running is still ingenuity, and all signs point to the exact opposite of what you're saying: we'll need even smarter people in the future. In most cases AI doesn't even lower the bar for anyone and makes topics harder to understand on a sufficiently deep level to do anything useful with that knowledge. With LLMs too many conflate communication with understanding. A robot middleman merely relaying the understanding of other humans does not itself possess that understanding.
  - djtango 1y ago
    I don't think we're in disagreement. In the past the environment necessitated that even scholars be fit and strong because they probably had to carry tomes around and fetch things from shelves whereas today we carry more than the Great Library in the palm of our hands. The plough spared people from back breaking labour but now we have the opposite problem where less than 25 percent of Americans walk for more than ten minutes continuously in a typical week[1] and this presents both health problems both MSK and cardiovascular but also burdens on the healthcare system. You seem to place a lot of faith in LLMs just being middlemen but the real life proof seems to be that many people, especially children and students, are leaning on it heavily in place of learning and understanding [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121130151132.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121130151132.h...
- teekert 1y ago
  Idk, I simply enjoy gathering knowledge and understanding things. Formally educated as a biologist, nobody ever forced me to install Gentoo. Or compile kernels, or self-host all the things, or read Harari. It was all just curiosity. And I believe many if not most people here are like that. So be careful generalizing I guess I’d say.
  - djtango 1y ago
    Rightly so - I happen to enjoy staying fit and strong far beyond what my life needs of me. I also enjoy keeping my mind enriched. But the reality is that a sedentary lifestyle is the norm in the aggregate, despite the numerous people who buck the trend
    - teekert 1y ago
      “I take a gramme and only am.” I always think this when doom scrolling. I just can’t do it for very long without chiding myself. And now I see this generation below me who needs some moment for them selves every day: “I’m going to take some me time.” And what do they do? Take the somma (like YT shorts). It’s not inducing happiness. I worry sometimes.

by bavell 1y ago

djtango 1y ago

The Roman legion marched up to 3mph, 18 miles a day bearing up to 70lbs. They did this on considerably less nutrition and with smaller frames than your average American today. The average human doesn't need to be that fit and strong anymore. Just like the future human won't need to be so intelligent anymore. And yet it feels like maybe we shouldn't be giving that up so easily...

sublinear 1y ago
> The average human doesn't need to be that fit and strong anymore. Just like the future human won't need to be so intelligent anymore. I disagree. What saved us from physical toil was not physical fitness, but ingenuity. What keeps the world running is still ingenuity, and all signs point to the exact opposite of what you're saying: we'll need even smarter people in the future. In most cases AI doesn't even lower the bar for anyone and makes topics harder to understand on a sufficiently deep level to do anything useful with that knowledge. With LLMs too many conflate communication with understanding. A robot middleman merely relaying the understanding of other humans does not itself possess that understanding.
- djtango 1y ago
  I don't think we're in disagreement. In the past the environment necessitated that even scholars be fit and strong because they probably had to carry tomes around and fetch things from shelves whereas today we carry more than the Great Library in the palm of our hands. The plough spared people from back breaking labour but now we have the opposite problem where less than 25 percent of Americans walk for more than ten minutes continuously in a typical week[1] and this presents both health problems both MSK and cardiovascular but also burdens on the healthcare system. You seem to place a lot of faith in LLMs just being middlemen but the real life proof seems to be that many people, especially children and students, are leaning on it heavily in place of learning and understanding [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121130151132.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121130151132.h...
teekert 1y ago
Idk, I simply enjoy gathering knowledge and understanding things. Formally educated as a biologist, nobody ever forced me to install Gentoo. Or compile kernels, or self-host all the things, or read Harari. It was all just curiosity. And I believe many if not most people here are like that. So be careful generalizing I guess I’d say.
- djtango 1y ago
  Rightly so - I happen to enjoy staying fit and strong far beyond what my life needs of me. I also enjoy keeping my mind enriched. But the reality is that a sedentary lifestyle is the norm in the aggregate, despite the numerous people who buck the trend
  - teekert 1y ago
    “I take a gramme and only am.” I always think this when doom scrolling. I just can’t do it for very long without chiding myself. And now I see this generation below me who needs some moment for them selves every day: “I’m going to take some me time.” And what do they do? Take the somma (like YT shorts). It’s not inducing happiness. I worry sometimes.