Neil Postman: A civilized man in a century of barbarism (2003)

Re:Neil Postman: A civilized man in a century of barbarism (... by p1esk on Monday May 08, 2023 @08:36AM (#35860871)

You got it backwards: reading books is a lot more like television than interacting with GPT-4. Why do you assume one would apply more critical thinking when reading Postman's original texts than when reading GPT-4 writings about them? I'm starting to think you haven't spent much time with GPT-4. The quality is the key here.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Neil Postman: A civilized man in a century of barbarism (... by majormajor on Monday May 08, 2023 @12:37PM (#35863694)

It's the difference between wanting an easy answer to a question and wanting information to process on your own. You would have to apply critical thinking when reading Postman's texts to know what he might think about GPT-4 because he never actually wrote about it directly.

The prompt here wasn't something like "give me summaries of Postman's writings so that I can draw my own conclusions about what he would think," it was "tell me what to believe." It's the action and approach that matters.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Neil Postman: A civilized man in a century of barbarism (... by p1esk on Monday May 08, 2023 @04:07PM (#35866385)

Ok, sure, but how is this different from talking to humans?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Neil Postman: A civilized man in a century of barbarism (... by majormajor on Monday May 08, 2023 @04:31PM (#35866674)

I don't think Postman would've had much patience for the person who says "I heard it from a dude in a bar so it has to be true" either...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Neil Postman: A civilized man in a century of barbarism (... by p1esk on Monday May 08, 2023 @04:41PM (#35866792)

How about: “I discussed this with Neil Postman, and he believes that <…>”?

[ Parent | on HN ]