The point of the article is that we don't like being idle. We'd rather spend our idle time "pretending" we are being productive, and tools for thought are what we use for that.
Being actually productive (quality > quantity), I argue, is a process that takes physical time. Absorbing information, internalizing it, and summarizing it with our own understanding requires a lot of energy.
This process cannot be massively accelerated. Same as with physical fitness, one can operate close to optimum and see and maintain great results, but one cannot operate better than optimum given one's own physical constraints.
For intelectual work, defining what "operating close to optimum" means is much harder because the quantity of output is usually the metric, and that varies so much from discipline to discipline and person to person. I believe many of us are already operating close to optimum (reading and writing, attending meetings, presenting our work), so there is no point in investing even more towards productivity. But the falacy is that because we don't have a proper metric for productivity, we believe investing even more is worthwhile since it increases output, and so we perceive ourselves as better.
I don't see AI changing the picture for us because the problem is not what we are doing, but how we perceive to be doing it. That's what's up with tools for thought and personal wikis.
I believe that a fine-tuned autoregressive language model such as GPT, enhanced with your personal notes, has the potential to serve as a highly effective cognitive aid, potentially even fulfilling the role of a "second brain" that many of us are looking for.
It's not scalable, but as an existence proof of what you're saying, my partner and I fulfill this role for each other - we each are tasked with remembering different facets of our lives (e.g. I know the plot and cast of every movie we've ever watched, she remembers to pay taxes :).
It seems pretty obvious we're heading for that utopia/dystopia where everyone is assigned a personal assistant loaded onto a pervasive mesh (your glasses, watch, phone, computer, desk, house). On the one hand it sounds great to have an AI assistant that knows what I know, a model of how I think, and the ability to fill in the gaps instantly. On the other, it's so ripe for abuse/deepening inequality, the idea almost qualifies as "don't create the torment nexus".
Being actually productive (quality > quantity), I argue, is a process that takes physical time. Absorbing information, internalizing it, and summarizing it with our own understanding requires a lot of energy. This process cannot be massively accelerated. Same as with physical fitness, one can operate close to optimum and see and maintain great results, but one cannot operate better than optimum given one's own physical constraints.
For intelectual work, defining what "operating close to optimum" means is much harder because the quantity of output is usually the metric, and that varies so much from discipline to discipline and person to person. I believe many of us are already operating close to optimum (reading and writing, attending meetings, presenting our work), so there is no point in investing even more towards productivity. But the falacy is that because we don't have a proper metric for productivity, we believe investing even more is worthwhile since it increases output, and so we perceive ourselves as better.
I don't see AI changing the picture for us because the problem is not what we are doing, but how we perceive to be doing it. That's what's up with tools for thought and personal wikis.