[mg]

My feeling is that saving writing from AI is like saving thinking from the pen.

If we were to live in a society where building a cohesive thought has to be done completely in one's head and communicating it needs to be done via talking, the pen might seem like a crutch that will make people lose those skills.

---

By the way, I asked GPT-3.5 what it would change in my text above, and it says:

    Change "seem" to "appear" The word "seem"
    is more informal and less precise than "appear."
    By using the word "appear" instead, the sentence
    sounds more formal and adds more clarity to the
    writer's intent.

I'm not sure I agree. What does everybody think?

[comex]

I think replacing “seem like” with “appear to be” would make the sentence worse. “Seem like” gives a more abstract feel to the comparison, which is well-suited to the sentence given that “the pen” does not refer to an individual pen and “a crutch” does not refer to literal crutches. “Appear to be” is also just more wordy.

But “has”, “needs”, and “will” should probably be “had”, “needed”, and “would”, and then I would replace “were to live” with “lived”.

[dasil003]

Interesting that it gives the (bad) subjective advice, but misses the clear cut grammatical error.

[bitwize]

> My feeling is that saving writing from AI is like saving thinking from the pen.

> If we were to live in a society where building a cohesive thought has to be done completely in one's head and communicating it needs to be done via talking, the pen might seem like a crutch that will make people lose those skills.

In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates made just about that exact point: that writing was not really a means to remember, but merely a reminder of what must be remembered, and that it cannot convey wisdom because it cannot be engaged in dialogue.

Socrates might've been a bit disappointed to hear of recent studies which suggest that the act of writing something down does help you remember.

I suspect the same is true of computers in general -- the technology of today that many thinkers like to grouse about for fear it is ruining future generations' minds. And to be sure there are Skinner boxes that run on computers like social media and Candy Crush that serve little purpose other than to sap our attention for advertising dollars. But... the act of programming a computer can be as mind-strengthening as writing, perhaps even more so. To program, say, a flight simulator, you have to know enough aerodynamics, deep down, to express it in a concrete, specific, and succinct way to a computer -- so if you want to strengthen your understanding of aerodynamics, writing a program to simulate it might be a good exercise. (I think this form of education was what Alan Kay was trying to get at with Smalltalk and the Dynabook project.)

Hmm... might programming and prompting an AI model both count as "forms of writing you can engage in dialogue with"? I think Socrates might sniff at them as weak forms of dialogue compared to sitting around talking with philosophers, but they're more active and dynamic than reading fixed, printed text and therefore may well present new avenues of education.

[mg]

    programming a computer can be as
    mind-strengthening as writing

When computers become more intelligent than humans, a strong mind (able to think stuff through) might not be of importance anymore. Just like being able to run fast is not important anymore in the times of cars and boats and planes.

[bryanrasmussen]

>Socrates might've been a bit disappointed to hear of recent studies which suggest that the act of writing something down does help you remember.

Socratic reasoning is not based on studies to determine what is true, but rather logical argumentation, so I suppose he would find the use of studies unuseful.

[nmland1]

Using AI to write is more like peeking at your neighbor's output during a school exam.

Or rather, since the AI also stole from others, peeking at the neighbor's output, who in turn stole it from his neighbor.

[mg]

One difference is that this neighbor will always be there for you.

Another is that you cannot discuss stuff with your neighbor during an exam. But you can discuss anything as much as you like with AI.

[johnnyworker]

> One difference is that this neighbor will always be there for you.

Someone you're copying from during an exam is there for the whole duration of the exam. Neither are there "for you" though, they're just there.

> But you can discuss anything as much as you like with AI.

No, because a statistical model isn't thought. You can get something out of it, just like you can get something out of watching a movie that was made without the knowledge of your existence, but that something is not conversation.

[croo]

"you need to learn how to do arithmetics. You won't always have a calculator in your packet!"

I guess next generation will always have their personal AI with them.

[Modified3019]

Definitely thinks "seem" better fits imo. Oddly enough earlier today I weighed the difference between the two before sending a text message to a coworker.

Appear would fit better if the subject was visual.

[DocTomoe]

This may be more a thing for learners of English as a foreign language, but in the institution where I learned the language at the C level, we were encouraged to buy, read, and apply foreign language style guides, e.g. the one from the Economist [1].

The text you copied reads a lot like something you would find in such a style guide.

[1] http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/sty...

[phnofive]

'seem like' would swap well with 'appear to be', but frankly I'm not following your similies.

[mg]

The similarity between the pen and AI is that both are tools that help mankind build better works of thought.

Technology progresses and mankind becomes more effective all the time.

At every stage, some people argue that the loss of manual ability outweights the gained technological ability.

I remember people arguing against computer based navigation because people would lose their ability to navigate by map.

[nonameiguess]

People largely did lose the ability to navigate by map. It hasn't mattered mostly because people have their computers with them often enough to not get lost, but I can tell you from having been in the Army it is a bitch teaching people to navigate without any electronics.

A pen is a means to write down and not forget the thoughts you're having, enabling long form information storage and transmission. It doesn't formulate the thoughts for you. You might be thinking more of a ghostwriter. Rich kids have always been able to pay nerds to do their homework for them. Now that technology is available to the masses and we no longer need nerds.

ChatGPT gave you a useless suggestion to justify its own salary, in my opinion. Seem to appear is a pointless, cosmetic edit that doesn't change the meaning of what you wrote in any way.

[bryanrasmussen]

seem is better.

appear has more of a visual meaning, whereas seem is more abstracted.