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by techpression 14 days ago
The calculator comparisons are truly meaningless imo, a calculator does nothing if you don’t know how to use it and what to input, an LLM circumvents all that, but a lot of people seem to think it’s the same.
3 comments

It’s not a perfect analogy. I’m approaching it from perspective of a more universal experience of people losing aspects of a skill over time by using a tool. When ultimately the skill learned with out it allows them to use the tool much better
Ah yes, I very much agree on that framing.
When I (and I assume others) use the calculator analogy, it's mainly about the teaching method.

You learn math without a calculator, then you learn how to do the boring parts with a calculator that you would still be able to do (slower) if needed.

Socrates thought similar of reading and writing, if that analogy lands any better.