All I need to know about AI is that it was тАЬconcernedтАЭ about my question when I asked it to describe the difference between communism and humanism.
To be fair, though, this might just eliminate the grunt work that is only tangentially related to learning. Just like no one needs to learn long division or use it on tests anymore because of calculators, ChatGPT could help with structuring essays and reports.
I took a linear algebra test where we had to solve a system of 4 equations in 4 independent variables with no calculator. The professor could have given us 3x3, which is the same concept but a lot less multiplying and dividing. It was pointless. ThatтАЩs the kind of grunt work IтАЩm referring to.
IтАЩm particularly concerned about the rise of AI тАЬcompanionsтАЭ and what this will portend for our already atomized and lonely lives. Will we retreat into hyper-personalized fantasy spaces inhabited by digital sycophants that endlessly reflect our preferences and personas back to us? What will that do to us? To the fabric of society?
We need ways to ground, to тАЬtouch grassтАЭ as the kids say. To reassert the primacy of humanness. Douglass Rushkoff has a great manifesto about this, Team Human. I highly recommend reading it.
IтАЩm curious what others think about strategies for stability and sense-making.
How can we brace ourselves? How can we deepen our connections? Increase our resiliency? What are the daily practices, big and small?
Take public transport. Then seat at a street cafe for longer than having an actual coffee and listen to a conversation at the next table, engage in one with a stranger even if ever so brief.
Join things! It doesn't matter what. Take a trial-and-error approach, suspend your criticisms and anxiety for a time and try. It takes courage. If one needs courage, either pray or talk to a counselor. A shortage of courage happens to everyone at times. Don't think that any particular group will be the one answer. Human things don't work that way, but with courage, you will become stronger.
Join what things? A church or a volunteer group, for example. And there's a 12-Step group for everyone. I'm in AlAnon, which can be for anyone who has been affected by anyone's addiction, or for anyone who thinks that someone else's life is more important that their own. Some groups are healthy, some not. Trial and error.
I have a friend whose husband and children, all but one, died in an accident. She had to survive because of her remaining child. After a period of acute grief, she joined four volunteer groups. Gradually, she eliminated three of the four, and today, decades later, she is still involved with the remaining group.
I think you are correct. There is no better way to lift yourself out of a bad spot than to help someone else. As for volunteer opportunities: animal shelters, nursing homes, Habitat for Humanity, civil emergency preparedness, elections offices. The list is endless.
I once read a comment from an 18th century newspaper where someone complained that the prevalence of printed books and this fanciful "fiction" stuff was rotting the minds of kids, who didn't know how to interact with each other or do real hard work. Kids these days! They just want to sit around and read BOOKS. Tsk tsk.
I remember one from an ancient Greek philosopher lamenting young people and their sandals. I do think for everything gained something is lost though. I have thought lately about what writing must have done to peoples with strong oral histories.
Or maybe those with learning problems will have a new tool to help them succeed in life. If AI helps a dyslexic individual write something he needs to, I applaud him and whoever taught him to use this technology.
Lilly, as a mom of a dyslexic, I have seen the ill affects of the тАЬwell-intentioned dragonтАЭ of тАЬhelpтАЭ for a human nature that is hard-wired for тАЬwhatever doesnтАЩt kill you makes you stronger.тАЭ The vast knowledge at our easy disposal is having the opposite affect intended. You donтАЩt have to run a scientific study to see more information at our literal finger tips is making us dumber. ThatтАЩs why I want to scream from the proverbial rooftops: BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?!?!?
The "children" are busy entertaining themselves on TikTok. Who needs knowledge or reasoning skills when there's something more valuable, like entertainment, to pursue?
I guess it depends on how you define success. If the dyslexic student can generate his own thoughts but is limited by the ability to express those thoughts in writing he needs an editor and maybe there is an AI app for that. But just asking a ChatGP to spit out an essay is not creating your own product IMO.
This will level the playing field. Now the Dyslexic person and the people without it can all lose any jobs they have writing things, because in a few years the AI will just do it directly for the boss, no middle men needed.
I agree. A few years ago, I watched as the girl serving me at a department store counter had to add $25 and $16 ... and she took out her phone to do it. It wasn't just the admission of cognitive failure on a primary-school level that got me, but the unabashed nature of it. It's not as if she tried to sneak a look at her phone to do it.
At this rate of technological skill-depletion, the next generation won't be able to find their way from the kitchen to the living room without GoogleMaps.
With all due respect, this old lady (65!) has been working as a cashier for a year in a fast paced grocery story. (We get timed for how long it takes to check you out.) I graduated 2nd in my high school class, graduated magna cum laude and got A's in algebra. I'm a lifelong professional musician who can side read just about any music.
But when I'm standing there in front of an impatient customer with eight people in line behind them and I need to figure out even a fairly simple math problem, the pressure makes my mind go blank. I'm already imagining that the customer thinks I'm stupid, which makes it worse. I used to think the same way as you until I got on the other side of the counter. Now I give cashiers more grace. ЁЯдЧ
First my comment was in reply to someone else's and what I witnessed was a young waitress who obviously could not make change. I have seen similar incidents with other young people as well so I think it is an education problem. ICBW but I think that is what the original commenter was referencing. I am your age so understand your education pretty well. Math, including addition and subtraction was mastered in 3rd grade. Second I shop at one of those types of grocery stores and my observation is that it is stressful for the cashiers regardless of their proficiency or the nature of the customer. I park on the side and so observe their demeanor on their breaks. So I am kind. FWIW though I do not consider myself better than others. Nor am I impressed with people who think they are.
Crikey. Yourself and Lynne deserve an online civility prize for settling a point of disagreement amicably - and since this was buried under several layers of comments, it's barely in public view at that, so no virtue-signalling going on either.
Full marks ladies. This is a great testament to the pedigree of paying subscribers. One can easily imagine the spiral of toxicity this would have set off in almost every other online forum.
Soon you won't even have to talk to another person in real-life. What a dismal experience that would be.
All I need to know about AI is that it was тАЬconcernedтАЭ about my question when I asked it to describe the difference between communism and humanism.
To be fair, though, this might just eliminate the grunt work that is only tangentially related to learning. Just like no one needs to learn long division or use it on tests anymore because of calculators, ChatGPT could help with structuring essays and reports.
There is no grunt work in learning. See crawling before walking for example.
I took a linear algebra test where we had to solve a system of 4 equations in 4 independent variables with no calculator. The professor could have given us 3x3, which is the same concept but a lot less multiplying and dividing. It was pointless. ThatтАЩs the kind of grunt work IтАЩm referring to.
IтАЩm particularly concerned about the rise of AI тАЬcompanionsтАЭ and what this will portend for our already atomized and lonely lives. Will we retreat into hyper-personalized fantasy spaces inhabited by digital sycophants that endlessly reflect our preferences and personas back to us? What will that do to us? To the fabric of society?
We need ways to ground, to тАЬtouch grassтАЭ as the kids say. To reassert the primacy of humanness. Douglass Rushkoff has a great manifesto about this, Team Human. I highly recommend reading it.
IтАЩm curious what others think about strategies for stability and sense-making.
How can we brace ourselves? How can we deepen our connections? Increase our resiliency? What are the daily practices, big and small?
Take public transport. Then seat at a street cafe for longer than having an actual coffee and listen to a conversation at the next table, engage in one with a stranger even if ever so brief.
These two would be a good start.
Love it, great suggestions!
Your question inspired me to do the project IтАЩve been postponing for a long time. https://open.substack.com/pub/russianfeedback/p/ode-to-public-transport
Stop living our lives on the damn internet already.
Grant I hear you, but can you be specific?
Join things! It doesn't matter what. Take a trial-and-error approach, suspend your criticisms and anxiety for a time and try. It takes courage. If one needs courage, either pray or talk to a counselor. A shortage of courage happens to everyone at times. Don't think that any particular group will be the one answer. Human things don't work that way, but with courage, you will become stronger.
Join what things? A church or a volunteer group, for example. And there's a 12-Step group for everyone. I'm in AlAnon, which can be for anyone who has been affected by anyone's addiction, or for anyone who thinks that someone else's life is more important that their own. Some groups are healthy, some not. Trial and error.
I have a friend whose husband and children, all but one, died in an accident. She had to survive because of her remaining child. After a period of acute grief, she joined four volunteer groups. Gradually, she eliminated three of the four, and today, decades later, she is still involved with the remaining group.
I think you are correct. There is no better way to lift yourself out of a bad spot than to help someone else. As for volunteer opportunities: animal shelters, nursing homes, Habitat for Humanity, civil emergency preparedness, elections offices. The list is endless.
Join things, experiment, stay open to whatтАЩs working and let go of what isnтАЩt. Great advice Anne!
That was great, thanks for sharing it
I once read a comment from an 18th century newspaper where someone complained that the prevalence of printed books and this fanciful "fiction" stuff was rotting the minds of kids, who didn't know how to interact with each other or do real hard work. Kids these days! They just want to sit around and read BOOKS. Tsk tsk.
I remember one from an ancient Greek philosopher lamenting young people and their sandals. I do think for everything gained something is lost though. I have thought lately about what writing must have done to peoples with strong oral histories.
Aw c'mon you can't leave me hanging there. How were sandals going to destroy the next generation?
That was all they cared about apparently.
People also wrote about how TV would disconnect people from one another and make them lazy .... same with the internet ....
Sometimes future predictions about the impact of technology/cultural trends are wrong and sometimes they are right. We just don't know.
Totally agree. For starters, one is a noun and the other a verb
Exactly. Just because you can does not mean you should. That is an example of genuine intelligence.
This is how I feel
Or maybe those with learning problems will have a new tool to help them succeed in life. If AI helps a dyslexic individual write something he needs to, I applaud him and whoever taught him to use this technology.
Lilly, as a mom of a dyslexic, I have seen the ill affects of the тАЬwell-intentioned dragonтАЭ of тАЬhelpтАЭ for a human nature that is hard-wired for тАЬwhatever doesnтАЩt kill you makes you stronger.тАЭ The vast knowledge at our easy disposal is having the opposite affect intended. You donтАЩt have to run a scientific study to see more information at our literal finger tips is making us dumber. ThatтАЩs why I want to scream from the proverbial rooftops: BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?!?!?
The "children" are busy entertaining themselves on TikTok. Who needs knowledge or reasoning skills when there's something more valuable, like entertainment, to pursue?
I guess it depends on how you define success. If the dyslexic student can generate his own thoughts but is limited by the ability to express those thoughts in writing he needs an editor and maybe there is an AI app for that. But just asking a ChatGP to spit out an essay is not creating your own product IMO.
This will level the playing field. Now the Dyslexic person and the people without it can all lose any jobs they have writing things, because in a few years the AI will just do it directly for the boss, no middle men needed.
I was spelling my name for a university student and he asked me, "What's a hyphen?"
I agree. A few years ago, I watched as the girl serving me at a department store counter had to add $25 and $16 ... and she took out her phone to do it. It wasn't just the admission of cognitive failure on a primary-school level that got me, but the unabashed nature of it. It's not as if she tried to sneak a look at her phone to do it.
At this rate of technological skill-depletion, the next generation won't be able to find their way from the kitchen to the living room without GoogleMaps.
I have witnessed the same. Shocking.
With all due respect, this old lady (65!) has been working as a cashier for a year in a fast paced grocery story. (We get timed for how long it takes to check you out.) I graduated 2nd in my high school class, graduated magna cum laude and got A's in algebra. I'm a lifelong professional musician who can side read just about any music.
But when I'm standing there in front of an impatient customer with eight people in line behind them and I need to figure out even a fairly simple math problem, the pressure makes my mind go blank. I'm already imagining that the customer thinks I'm stupid, which makes it worse. I used to think the same way as you until I got on the other side of the counter. Now I give cashiers more grace. ЁЯдЧ
First my comment was in reply to someone else's and what I witnessed was a young waitress who obviously could not make change. I have seen similar incidents with other young people as well so I think it is an education problem. ICBW but I think that is what the original commenter was referencing. I am your age so understand your education pretty well. Math, including addition and subtraction was mastered in 3rd grade. Second I shop at one of those types of grocery stores and my observation is that it is stressful for the cashiers regardless of their proficiency or the nature of the customer. I park on the side and so observe their demeanor on their breaks. So I am kind. FWIW though I do not consider myself better than others. Nor am I impressed with people who think they are.
I've reread my comment and realize it came across as judgmental and self-centered, which was not my intention. Mea culpa.
Crikey. Yourself and Lynne deserve an online civility prize for settling a point of disagreement amicably - and since this was buried under several layers of comments, it's barely in public view at that, so no virtue-signalling going on either.
Full marks ladies. This is a great testament to the pedigree of paying subscribers. One can easily imagine the spiral of toxicity this would have set off in almost every other online forum.
No explanation necessary. I found your point valid which is why I clarified