> a genuinely good tool that enriches your thinking
A smartphone is also a genuinely good all-around tool. Even social media is a genuinely good tool for connecting people.
Yet, I feel like we've been overly optimistic about the impact of said tools on us and our societies in the past two decades.
Smartphones are so good, in fact, in some societies, half of us are addicted to them. Billions of people world-wide.
I ask myself: Will LLMs enrich my thinking in the long run, or will they ruin it?
And what about most people? Will half of us outsource most of our thinking in a decade from now?
Given the speed and global scale that we're running these experiments with, it's fair, I think, to be a bit sceptical of the conclusion that, in the long run, LLMs will enrich our thinking.
I agree with this. Tools are good, betting the farm on a single tool is bad.
Example, cars are good. Betting the farm on cars to the detriment of bikes, buses, and trains is clearly bad. The tool of an llm is clearly handy. Betting trillions of dollars and linking the future of the nation and globe to this tool is clearly bad.
Yes instead of investing everything in AI the USA should invest in electric versions of their vehicles and in trains that can safely carry them because of their lack of range.
There's a saying that the intelligence of an average prehistoric cave man should be, in general, higher than a modern day human simply because the lack of technology required stone age humans to be far more intelligent then we are today. Now you can survive by working as a clerk in McDs, but in the stone age you needed to be on your toes and smart af.
LLMs are just continuing the trend humanity has long been traveling down.
> There's a saying that the intelligence of an average prehistoric cave man should be, in general, higher than a modern day human simply because the lack of technology required stone age humans to be far more intelligent then we are today. Now you can survive by working as a clerk in McDs, but in the stone age you needed to be on your toes and smart af.
This is a funny twist on the glorification of the past.
Modern humans have been getting smarter even over the relatively short time periods that we’ve been measuring.
Modern day humans still can and do survive in the wild if they so desire. It’s not some lost intelligence that was only achievable by past ancient humans.
Flynn effect is just a trend for the past century or so and it's an international measure. For the past decade there's been a trend for the US exclusively that is not aligned with the flynn effect.
No, the CHLCA (Chimpanzee–Human Last Common Ancestor) would be smarter than humans. It could be that chimpanzee intelligence declined faster than human intelligence. Unlikely, but I want to clarify that we did not evolve from chimpanzees. We share a common ancestor.
So you're claim is prehistoric humans are stupider? Also unsubstantiated. And insulting to prehistoric humans. That kind of behavior isn't allowed on HN. Don't disparage a group.
"Flynn effect" claimed that intelligence has been increasing over time. At least we can sort of measure things in the modern era, while objectively assessing the intelligence of the long-dead is turning into skull-measuring territory.
A smartphone is also a genuinely good all-around tool. Even social media is a genuinely good tool for connecting people.
Yet, I feel like we've been overly optimistic about the impact of said tools on us and our societies in the past two decades.
Smartphones are so good, in fact, in some societies, half of us are addicted to them. Billions of people world-wide.
I ask myself: Will LLMs enrich my thinking in the long run, or will they ruin it?
And what about most people? Will half of us outsource most of our thinking in a decade from now?
Given the speed and global scale that we're running these experiments with, it's fair, I think, to be a bit sceptical of the conclusion that, in the long run, LLMs will enrich our thinking.