[findingMeaning]

I have a question:

Why do we even bother to learn if AI is going to solve everything for us?

If the promised and fabled AGI is about to approach, what is the incentive or learning to deal with these small problems?

Could someone enlighten me? What is the value of knowledge work?

[GenericPoster]

The world is a vastly easier place to live in when you're knowledgeable. Being knowledgeable opens doors that you didn't even know existed. If you're both using the same AGI tool, being knowledgeable allows you to solve problems within your domain better and faster than an amateur. You can describe your problems with more depth and take into considerations various pros and cons.

You're also assuming that AGI will help you or us. It could just as easily only help a select group of people and I'd argue that this is the most likely outcome. If it does help everybody and brings us to a new age, then the only reason to learn will be for learning's sake. Even if AI makes the perfect novel, you as a consumer still have to read it, process it and understand it. The more you know the more you can appreciate it.

But right now, we're not there. And even if you think it's only 5-10y away instead of 100+, it's better to learn now so you can leverage the dominant tool better than your competition.

[findingMeaning]

This is a really nice perspective!

> It could just as easily only help a select group of people and I'd argue that this is the most likely outcome

Currently it is only applicable to us who are programming!

Yeah, even if it gets away all the quirks, using it would still be better.

[randomcatuser]

I don't know if you're joking, but here are some answers:

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." — Plutarch

"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself." — John Dewey

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." — Albert Einstein

In order to think complex thoughts, you need to have building blocks. That's why we can think of relativity today, while nobody on Earth was able to in 1850.

May the future be even better than today!

[findingMeaning]

I mean I get all your point. But for someone witnessing rate of progress of AI, I don't understand the motivation.

Most people don't learn to live, they live and learn. Sure learning is useful, but I am genuinely curious why people overhype it.

Imagine you being able to solve math olympiad and get a gold. Will it change your life in objectively better way?

Will you learning about the physics help you solve millennium problems?

These takes practices, there are lot of gatekeeping. The whole idea of learning is for wisdom not knowledge.

So maybe we differ in perspective. I just don't see the point when there are agents that can do it.

Being creative requires taking action. The learning these day is mere consumption of information.

Maybe this is me. But meh.

[rwyinuse]

Well, you could use AI to learn you more theoretical knowledge on things like farming, hunting and fishing. That knowledge could be handy after societal collapse that is likely to come within a few decades.

Apart from that, I do think that AI makes a lot of traditional teaching obsolete. Depending on your field, much of university studies is just memorizing content and writing essays / exam answers based on that, after which you forget most of it. That kind of learning, as in accumulation of knowledge, is no longer very useful.

[marcusverus]

Think of it like Pascal's wager. The downside of unnecessary knowledge is pretty limited. The downside of ignorance is boundless.