Re:AI Is a Waste of Time
by gilmore606 on Friday April 28, 2023 @12:23PM
(#35743478)
In the ancient times of the year 2000, these same pieces were being written about how the Internet would ruin society and dumb down the population. This is hard to remember now, because the Internet ruined society and dumbed down the population.
Re:AI Is a Waste of Time
by marcosdumay on Friday April 28, 2023 @12:30PM
(#35743592)
Oh, I've seen them being about widespread television (somehow the articles lasted into the 80's), reality shows, fast-paced news, videogames, RPG, game books, the internet, web chatting (somehow they missed ICQ et al.), orkut, MMO-RPGs, online games (Facebook style), smartphones, modern social networks...
Oh, and there are the always-green ones about calculators, and encyclopedias (that changed into wikipedia). Of course there is the famous one from ancient Greece about writing... So, yeah, consider the population dumbed down already.
> What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only the semblance of wisdom, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much while for the most part they know nothing. And as men filled not with wisdom but with the conceit of wisdom they will be a burden to their fellows.
Socrates in Phaedrus. I searched it with ChatGPT. Could only vaguely remember it and indeed ChatGPT found the passage. Socrates was right...
Institutions are clearly threatened by this tech as it promises to upend many professional fields and economic relationships. In my case I'm seeing teachers suggest that GPT will ruin education, as though we haven't said the same thing about calculators or the internet or whatever the next thing is for generations.
Like many similar articles in the NYT and WaPo this article is nearly anti-intellectual is it's lack of basic research and curiosity. It's like these people haven't used the thing for even a half hour. But yet they speak with authority on the implications.
That demonstrates fear or gatekeeping. It demonstrates an interest in slowing down the change we are seeing. And it's pretty embarrassing to watch because you can't really hide that agenda when you don't know what you are talking about and are only coming from a place of defending the status quo.
Who buys into this? Who is this for? Who is convinced? They must be talking to people who want this answer and find it comforting. But given that it's not really very insightful or true, and has no shelf life, what's the point?
I really wonder.