[HN Gopher] The Slow Collapse of Critical Thinking in OSINT Due ...
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The Slow Collapse of Critical Thinking in OSINT Due to AI
Author : walterbell
Score : 34 points
Date : 2025-04-03 18:21 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dutchosintguy.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dutchosintguy.com)
| jruohonen wrote:
| """
|
| * Instead of forming hypotheses, users asked the AI for ideas.
|
| * Instead of validating sources, they assumed the AI had already
| done so.
|
| * Instead of assessing multiple perspectives, they integrated and
| edited the AI's summary and moved on.
|
| This isn't hypothetical. This is happening now, in real-world
| workflows.
|
| """
|
| Amen, and OSINT is hardly unique in this respect.
|
| And implicitly related, philosophically:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43561654
| cmiles74 wrote:
| Anyone using these tools would do well to take this article to
| heart.
| FrankWilhoit wrote:
| A crutch is one thing. A crutch made of rotten wood is another.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| Also, a crutch for doing long division is not the same as a
| crutch for general thinking and creativity.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > This isn't a rant against AI. I use it daily
|
| It is, but it adds disingenuous apologetic.
|
| Not wishing to pick on this particular author, or even this
| particular topic, but it follows a clear pattern that you can
| find everywhere in tech journalism: Some really
| bad thing X is happening. Everyone knows X is happening.
| There is evidence X is happening, But I am *not* arguing against
| X because that would brand me a
| Luddite/outsider/naysayer.... and we all know a LOT of
| money and influence (including my own salary) rests on
| nobody talking about X.
|
| Practically every article on the negative effects of smartphones
| or social media printed in the past 20 years starts with the same
| chirpy disavowal of the authors actual message. Something like;
|
| "Smartphones and social media are an essential part of modern
| life today... but"
|
| That always sounds like those people who say "I'm not a racist,
| but..."
|
| Sure, we get it, there's a lot of money and powerful people
| riding on "AI". Why water down your message of genuine concern?
| palmotea wrote:
| One way to achieve superhuman intelligence in AI is to make
| humans dumber.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| That's only if our stated goal is to make superhuman AI and we
| use AI at every level to help drive that goal. Point received.
| treyfitty wrote:
| Well, if I want to first understand the basics, such as "what do
| the letters OSINT mean," I'd think the homepage
| (https://osintframework.com/) would tell me. But alas, it does
| not, and a simple chatgpt query would have told me the answer
| without the wasted effort.
| walterbell wrote:
| GPU-free URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSINT
|
| Offline version: https://www.kiwix.org
| OgsyedIE wrote:
| Similar criticisms that outsiders need to do their own research
| to acquire foundational-level understanding before they start
| on the topic can be made about other popular topics on Hn that
| frequently use abbreviations, such as TLS, BSDs, URL and MCP,
| but somehow those get a pass.
|
| Is it unfair to make such demands for the inclusion of
| 101-level stuff in non-programming content, or is it unfair to
| give IT topics a pass? Which approach fosters a community of
| winners and which one does the opposite? I'm confident that you
| can work it out.
| AIorNot wrote:
| This is another silly against AI tools - that doesn't offer
| useful or insightful suggestions on how to adapt or provide an
| informed study of areas of concern and - one that capitalizes on
| the natural worries we have on HN because of our generic fears
| around critical thinking being lost when AI will take over our
| jobs - in general, rather like concerns about the web in pre-
| internet age and SEO in digital marketing age
|
| OSINT only exists because of internet capabilities and google
| search - ie someone had to learn how to use those new tools just
| a few years ago and apply critical thinking
|
| AI tools and models are rapidly evolving and more in depth
| capabilities appearing in the models, all this means the tools
| are hardly set in stone and the workflows will evolve with them -
| it's still up to human oversight to evolve with the tools - the
| skills of human overseeing AI is something that will develop too
| card_zero wrote:
| The article is all about that oversight. It ends with a ten
| point checklist with items such as "Did I treat GenAI as a
| thought partner--not a source of truth?".
| cmiles74 wrote:
| So weak! No matter how good a model gets it will always present
| information with confidence regardless of whether or not it's
| correct. Anyone that has spent five minutes with the tools I
| knows this.
| salgernon wrote:
| OSINT (not a term I was particularly familiar with, personally)
| actually goes back quite a ways[1]. Software certainly makes
| aggregating the information easier to accumulate and finding
| signal in the noise, but bad security practices do far more to
| make that information accessible.
|
| [1]
| https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16161262.2023.2...
| BariumBlue wrote:
| Good point in the post about confidence - most people equate
| confidence with accuracy - and since AIs always sound confident,
| they always sound correct
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(page generated 2025-04-03 23:00 UTC)