Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by gdulli 219 days ago
People are unsophisticated and see how convincing LLM output looks on the surface. They think it's already intelligent, or that intelligence is just around the corner. Or that its ability to displace labor, if not intelligence, is imminent.

If consumption of slop turns out to be a novelty that goes away and enough time goes by without a leap to truly useful intelligence, the AI investment will go down.
1 comments
SamPatt 219 days ago
If we define intelligence as problem solving ability, then AI makes _me_ more intelligent, and I'm willing to pay for that.
link
gdulli 219 days ago
The calculator didn't make people better at math, it led to a society of people who can't do math without a calculator. And as a result math doesn't get done in many casual situations where it would be helpful, but people don't go to the trouble of pulling out the calculator.

So it's made it easier for people to be taken advantage of at the grocery store etc.

link
Zanfa 219 days ago
Most people are equally bad at math with or without a calculator. The problem for the average person isn’t that they can’t add two numbers, it’s that they can’t tell which numbers they should be adding in the first place.
link
SamPatt 219 days ago
You blame the calculator for people's innumeracy?

I'd argue it's a failure of education or general lack of intelligence. The existence of a tool to speed the process up doesn't preclude people understanding the process.

I don't think this relates as closely to AI as you seem to. I'm simply better at building things, and doing things, with AI than without. Not just faster, better. If that's not true for you, you're either using it wrong or maybe you already knew how to do everything already - if so, good for you!

link