3 ms·

Hear hear. I do not understand the people who bemoan the loss of slide rules and books of trig tables in the era of graphing calculators. I’m with you — I’m pr

by brookst 1mo ago

Hear hear. I do not understand the people who bemoan the loss of slide rules and books of trig tables in the era of graphing calculators. I’m with you — I’m producing more and better art, with a deeper understanding of the art which comes from scale. My music is more innovative, my simulations are richer and more fun, I can wake up in the morning with a new idea and have a prototype in hours. It is magical.

Jcampuzano2 1mo ago
Big difference is when you use a calculator or other tools, you still have to interpret and know what to enter. With modern AI, you basically just ask for something and what used to be days worth of work magically appears, you didn't really think through a single thing when it comes to implementation, architecture etc unless you made a conscious effort to audit that. We also generally still encourage students to learn how to do certain operations and what they mean without a calculator before letting them rely on it to make things quicker. If you never knew what a sin/cos was you'd never even know when to use those or why they even exist on a calculator. AI is a step up where you literally don't have to know what those are, you could just take a picture and ask for the solution and it would do that all for you if you let it. In reality modern AI is a massive test of willpower. You can completely let go of the reigns and it will happily do everything for you.
- brookst 1mo ago
  I appreciate your reply and framing, but it strikes me as a spirited opposition to delegation. Or at least a strong assertion that AI use is similar to managing an organization. The reins metaphor is also interesting and cuts both ways: riders don’t expect to do the walking themselves, and setting direction is not the same as doing (even understanding, or being able to do) the work.
claytongulick 1mo ago
> Hear hear. I do not understand the people who bemoan the loss of slide rules and books of trig tables in the era of graphing calculators. Why do you think so many people prefer to listen to live music over an album playing on a jukebox? Live music doesn't have the polish and perfection of a studio recording, it's much less efficient to have to manually play instruments than to just hit "play" on a song. So why bother? I think it's because we're looking at things wrong all over the place. Similar to live music, I definitely prefer to read code written by a real human. I can get in their head, understand how they were reasoning to solve a problem, even if there were problems with their reasoning. When I hear all the breathless takes about AI "productivity" improvements, my brain just circles aback to the old saw about activity over achievement. What are your outputs? What is activity and what is achievement? A business person brags that AI is able to generate a report for them that used to require lots of manual work linking spreadsheets. OK. What was the value of the report? What was the goal? I like to follow this all the way down- - Widget sales report Why? - To inform inventory and production decisions, as well as marketing Why? - So that the company can make money? So that the founders can be proud of their product? So that the product can improve lives in some way? Why? - So that the people working can have improved lives, and/or more status in society Why? - So that collectively by competing with each other in structured ways, humans as a whole thrive and benefit Etc... OK. Where does AI fit into this? What has it taken away from the human experience, and how had it affected all of these goals? The goal isn't code. It isn't even the product that the code makes - it's the reward signaling that you get from cooperating and competing with other people. When you short circuit your efforts at creation by using AI, it feels the same to me as saying you're putting on a live music show, but instead just hitting "play" on an album.
- brookst 1mo ago
  To the extent code is artistic expression, sure, I get what you're saying. But when you sit down at an awesome synth and start jamming, do you care whether the firmware was written by a real live human? It's forest/trees.
  - claytongulick 1mo ago
    > But when you sit down at an awesome synth and start jamming, do you care whether the firmware was written by a real live human? Yes. Very much so. I want to play an instrument that was thoughtfully designed and created at every level by someone with deep knowledge and passion. I want hand crafted waveforms that someone spent endless hours with a headphone making just right, and they were damn proud of it. I want to see videos of the person who did it and how. What inspired the sound, how it evolved. I want the human experience.

by brookst 1mo ago

Jcampuzano2 1mo ago

Big difference is when you use a calculator or other tools, you still have to interpret and know what to enter. With modern AI, you basically just ask for something and what used to be days worth of work magically appears, you didn't really think through a single thing when it comes to implementation, architecture etc unless you made a conscious effort to audit that. We also generally still encourage students to learn how to do certain operations and what they mean without a calculator before letting them rely on it to make things quicker. If you never knew what a sin/cos was you'd never even know when to use those or why they even exist on a calculator. AI is a step up where you literally don't have to know what those are, you could just take a picture and ask for the solution and it would do that all for you if you let it. In reality modern AI is a massive test of willpower. You can completely let go of the reigns and it will happily do everything for you.

brookst 1mo ago
I appreciate your reply and framing, but it strikes me as a spirited opposition to delegation. Or at least a strong assertion that AI use is similar to managing an organization. The reins metaphor is also interesting and cuts both ways: riders don’t expect to do the walking themselves, and setting direction is not the same as doing (even understanding, or being able to do) the work.

claytongulick 1mo ago

> Hear hear. I do not understand the people who bemoan the loss of slide rules and books of trig tables in the era of graphing calculators. Why do you think so many people prefer to listen to live music over an album playing on a jukebox? Live music doesn't have the polish and perfection of a studio recording, it's much less efficient to have to manually play instruments than to just hit "play" on a song. So why bother? I think it's because we're looking at things wrong all over the place. Similar to live music, I definitely prefer to read code written by a real human. I can get in their head, understand how they were reasoning to solve a problem, even if there were problems with their reasoning. When I hear all the breathless takes about AI "productivity" improvements, my brain just circles aback to the old saw about activity over achievement. What are your outputs? What is activity and what is achievement? A business person brags that AI is able to generate a report for them that used to require lots of manual work linking spreadsheets. OK. What was the value of the report? What was the goal? I like to follow this all the way down- - Widget sales report Why? - To inform inventory and production decisions, as well as marketing Why? - So that the company can make money? So that the founders can be proud of their product? So that the product can improve lives in some way? Why? - So that the people working can have improved lives, and/or more status in society Why? - So that collectively by competing with each other in structured ways, humans as a whole thrive and benefit Etc... OK. Where does AI fit into this? What has it taken away from the human experience, and how had it affected all of these goals? The goal isn't code. It isn't even the product that the code makes - it's the reward signaling that you get from cooperating and competing with other people. When you short circuit your efforts at creation by using AI, it feels the same to me as saying you're putting on a live music show, but instead just hitting "play" on an album.

brookst 1mo ago
To the extent code is artistic expression, sure, I get what you're saying. But when you sit down at an awesome synth and start jamming, do you care whether the firmware was written by a real live human? It's forest/trees.
- claytongulick 1mo ago
  > But when you sit down at an awesome synth and start jamming, do you care whether the firmware was written by a real live human? Yes. Very much so. I want to play an instrument that was thoughtfully designed and created at every level by someone with deep knowledge and passion. I want hand crafted waveforms that someone spent endless hours with a headphone making just right, and they were damn proud of it. I want to see videos of the person who did it and how. What inspired the sound, how it evolved. I want the human experience.