[HN Gopher] Setting time on fire and the temptation of The Button
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Setting time on fire and the temptation of The Button
Author : headalgorithm
Score : 48 points
Date : 2023-06-03 18:40 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.oneusefulthing.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.oneusefulthing.org)
| stdbrouw wrote:
| Funny that of all things they take letters of recommendation as
| an example of a genre with implicit information that will be
| upset by AI-aided writing. In academia it's common knowledge that
| such letters are written by the recommendee and then signed by
| the recommender after at most light editing. The signal is
| already "this guy we trust thinks this person is the real deal"
| and the content is irrelevant.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| > I wonder whether that will ultimately do my student's a
| disservice.
|
| Dude, if you make errors like that in your letters, letting AI
| write for you will probably be a good idea.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| > People may not be as thoughtful about what they write, or the
| lack of effort may mean they don't think through problems as
| deeply. We may not learn how to write as well. We may be flooded
| with low-quality content.
|
| The opposite could also be true. With AI generating a skeleton,
| more thought can be given to what you want to say instead of the
| individual words.
| hoosieree wrote:
| I'm reading Dune right now. One thing that stands out about the
| Dune universe is how much humanity changed and evolved because
| they _did not_ have AI crutches.
|
| And I wonder how long it will take us to look back at "the
| button" with the same kind of wary attitude we have today about
| smoking (and that we're starting to have about social media).
|
| So many things are easy and good for us in the short term, but
| terrible for us in the longer term. Will we get better at
| spotting such things earlier?
| catchnear4321 wrote:
| > Will we get better at spotting such things earlier?
|
| perhaps. if the species survives long enough to do so.
|
| reducing the problems to problem or pattern makes it easier.
|
| uphill battle, given how so many of these tempting troubles are
| the product of or propellant for corporate greed and general
| power-seeking by individuals.
|
| many of these terribly harmful things are also abso-fucking-
| lutely dopamine delicious. smokers talk about that first
| cigarette, sugar eaters think about that one really extra
| cookie, even recognized as harmful, they can trigger longing.
|
| so though individuals get better at spotting bait, the bait
| will likely be made tastier.
|
| something bigger needs to change.
| losteric wrote:
| I think there's at least two pieces here
|
| 1. Concern about loss off creativity in creative exercises: this
| is a fair UX critique. Personally, I find that using ChatGPT as a
| rubber duck is extremely valuable, even for complex "softskill"
| challenges. I wish more tools were built towards this angle,
| instead of trying to just do the work with AI. I imagine an LLM
| auto-writing text like now, with subsequent UX highlighting
| points to converse and evolve the artifact.
|
| 2. Post-scarcity loss of meaning where quality used to be a proxy
| metric. eg if a professor of status took the time to write a good
| letter of recommendation, you were really worth it. This was
| always a flawed and biased system. Same for yearly reviews, and
| most promo processes. Hopefully society adapts by dropping the
| fluff in favor of hard data - a bulletpoint list from a professor
| with some mechanism to verify the number of recommendations made
| seems better than what we have today.
| PAPPPmAc wrote:
| IMO, grammatically pleasing AI spew is exploiting the same mental
| shortcut as the well established "Anything looks credible if it's
| typeset in LaTeX" or "Printing resumes on nice paper for a
| subconscious boost" effects.
|
| We use secondary/contextual indicators, which are historically
| proxies for "How much time, expense, and/or expertise was
| involved in preparing this document" to judge documents. It's not
| even that different than printing eliminating the quality of the
| scribe's work as a tell.
| californical wrote:
| Very nice article, thanks for sharing!
|
| I just worry about the impacts on creativity around forming
| ideas.
|
| Sometimes when working on a document or presentation, I'll get
| partway through and realize "oh maybe I want to go a totally
| different direction with this".
|
| I feel like that will partly be lost, because the thinking
| pattern of changing directions like that _depends_ on having
| thought through some of it already.
|
| Will AI be able to do that? Maybe eventually, but we're nowhere
| close right now with LLMs. I'm a bit worried about this
| increasing inequality between those who "still need to think
| creatively" and those who don't need to anymore (and start to
| lose the ability). We're living in interesting times!
| internetter wrote:
| You should flesh this out into it's own piece, I'd love to read
| it.
| hartator wrote:
| And still I found the original input letter more interesting to
| read.
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