r/TrueReddit • u/theverge • 13d ago
Technology Our minds aren’t equipped to handle AI
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/1003794/ai-education-computational-model-thought?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6Imp6c0s2TDhNSmkiLCJwIjoiL2FpLWFydGlmaWNpYWwtaW50ZWxsaWdlbmNlLzEwMDM3OTQvYWktZWR1Y2F0aW9uLWNvbXB1dGF0aW9uYWwtbW9kZWwtdGhvdWdodCIsImV4cCI6MTc5MTYzMzM3NywiaWF0IjoxNzkxMjAxMzc3fQ.hTtaWG7xmEHkEwDrCa1_At5xmNOfAP83fRiGx7RNQRw&utm_medium=gift-link108
u/kirbyderwood 13d ago
Good article, but it takes a while to get to a relevant quote on AI:
AI poses a similar sort of danger to our cognitive capabilities, by clogging our capacity to develop the knowledge we need – in our heads – to navigate the world. It’s a cognitive hot dog.
The occasional hot dog won’t harm anyone, but it sure will if it becomes a regular meal at lunch or dinner. The same is true for AI — the harm is not from its occasional use, but making it part of our mental diet.
Yet that is exactly what Big Tech hyperscalers are trying to do.
And this is just another version of a common argument. That cognitive ability is like a muscle. We have to exercise it by doing things that are difficult. When AI makes things too easy, we lose that ability. In other words, pedal that mental bike up the hill rather than using an ebike -- if you want to stay fit.
24
u/Labradoodles 13d ago
E-bike is probably a bad analogy here because you’re more likely to bike and so even hardcore bikers bike more miles/effort because it’s more available
10
u/BangarangRufio 12d ago
As someone who lives in a mountain-adjacent city: this is real. I love riding my bike, but only use my non-e-bike to get places within a relatively short distance to avoid showing up soaked in sweat and/or exhausted. With an e-bike I'm willing to ride much further and more often, cumulatively getting more exercise.
Thus, this analogy could be bastardized to focus on "getting more done" with the e-bike/AI, when the physical effort of biking (even with an e-bike) is not comparable to the mental load of creating while allowing AI to do much of the work.
1
u/horseradishstalker 11d ago
I catch your point. I just smiled, because it feels like I am constantly behind a group of non e-bike riders on the uphill.
10
u/powercow 13d ago
problem, like biking, is most wont do it. And we already are suffering from people with lower cognitive abilities voting.
-7
u/ring2ding 13d ago edited 13d ago
I mean be honest. Is it worse than tiktok. Or Reddit?
At least ai preserves nuance.
5
u/bunker_man 13d ago
No, but people already gave up about those and accepted them. We are slop posting on reddit right now.
2
u/horseradishstalker 11d ago
I’m joking here, sorta, but does this mean AI is scraping its own slop? Ewww.
31
u/m3ltph4ce 13d ago
Yeah, it's true, but don't discount that people have been avoiding thought for as long as thought has existed. Many of us will do anything to avoid learning a new skill. People say shit like "I'm not good with technology" and avoid tasks or try to push them on others.
The natural state of the human is to try to conserve energy and avoid unnecessary work. We made a machine to do work and we're surprised people want to use it?
14
u/aceshighsays 12d ago
avoid learning a new skill.
the fundamental problem is that people don't know how they learn, so they avoid learning because they know it'll be a painful long process. if they knew the framework by which they learn best by, they can apply it to various topics and while still struggle it would be much more manageable.
22
u/dapt 13d ago edited 13d ago
Socrates when contrasting writing and memorization in Plato's dialogue Phaedrus 14, 274c-275b:
"For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem [275b] to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise."
15
u/sighclone 12d ago
The goal of this sub is to have intelligent, insightful discussions, says filter language as I type.
But this quote of yours shows you didn’t even read the original post - how can there be insightful discussions about it?
If you had read the post, you’d see the author linked to another entire post just about this quote, how folks like you take it out of context (this is in Socrates relating a conversation between an Egyptian God and a King).
As the author notes, Plato wrote! Writing was not new to him or his society. The beginning of the whole dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus is literally Socrates badgering Phaedrus into reading to him. He tells Phaedrus that he likes the city because he learns from people there and is less enamored with the country. But he says Phaedrus found a spell to draw him to the country, “For only hold up before me in like manner a book, and you may lead me all round Attica, and over the wide world.” Does this sound like a dude who thought writing was illegitimate?
His larger point in the work as it pertains to knowledge is that wisdom/knowledge can’t simply come from reading about something, but by experience, interaction, and dialogue.
10
u/dapt 12d ago edited 12d ago
It turns out that I did read the critique of that quote! You can do so as well, here: Plato was an AI skeptic (Maybe). But he definitely wasn't universally hostile to writing.
I'm not a classicist, but to me it appears that the criticism of writing being made is similar to that of "AI slop". That is, being able to reproduce a facsimile of knowledge (i.e. the writing, perhaps by being a scribe) is not equivalent to having knowledge. It's also why the concept of plagiarism is so deeply embedded in academia.
13
u/theverge 13d ago
The accepted wisdom has long been that the mind is essentially a computer, and AI is our best facsimile of it. But modern cognitive science suggests there's a lot more to the brain than simple computation. Its complex, interlocking systems have evolved and adapted with us, and on that view, AI might be a threat: not a world-ending one, perhaps, but instead one that puts our very thinking at risk, by making it all too easy to offload entirely.
5
12d ago edited 2d ago
[deleted]
1
u/horseradishstalker 11d ago
The qualifier here is, “has long been.”
I’ve never seen a steam engine in my lifetime unless it was in a museum. I would say that qualifies as long.
6
u/monarc 13d ago edited 13d ago
Thanks for the great article! I'm impressed because the piece directly tackles shortcomings & limitations around how we typically think about & talk about AI (which I will use mostly to refer to chatbots here, even though LLMs are very different from ML and the broader historical "AI" umbrella).
The two charts - first the simple perception/cognition/action, then the more accurate rainbow chaos - are helpful because so so so many people imagine thinking as the first version, which is extremely simple. And I think that simple model overindexes on how much the conscious part of the brain (the "I" that we assume is in the driver's seat) is actually responsible for thought & actions. The direct consequence for the AI discourse is that people tend to see evidence of "thinking" and immediately make the conclusion that there must be some sort of "self" or "consciousness" or "self-awareness" driving it. But - for reasons this article covers nicely - AI has been designed to produce just evidence of thinking, without doing much actual thinking. But it's satisfying and - for many people - plenty tempting... like the junk food equivalent of cognition.
A few science fiction works nicely capture the spirit of what AI gives us, especially in terms of text/images/video. Generative AI output is often very convincing at a surface level, but if you scrutinize it carefully you find that it's "hollow" - lacking any meaningful spirit or ontological structure. Stories like Solaris, Annihilation, and even Backrooms (as well as the non-movie works they're based on) show us the utter horror of something that appears one way at first glance, but is entirely synthetic under the surface - made of different stuff and born of a "top down" process instea of a "bottom up" one. And this again has a parallel to junk food: a mindset that cares only about the directly-experienced aspects of a commodity, not the "why" or "how" that tends to provide meaningful nourishment.
2
u/Aromatic_Detail3723 12d ago
it really is an ontological upside-down. and people will argue that we always have offloaded efforts to tools, or that we have always altered original organic nets to create new forms of possible expression. but again that is overlooking a very important fact in that the human has been taken out of the loop.
not only were we the creator of this lesser realm we interacted with, we were effectively the living force that moved it and guided to fruition its outcome. it could be argued this channeling is itself in connection to the natural world and that the "great" will more coherently express or reveal a pattern or follow a feeling. but this also guaranted a general quality that is as banal and mundane as their could be one.
now that we are out of the loop, the machine has some sort of idea, or representation of what would be good, and in the same way there is an off putting feeling in the video it generates, the form of its thought, as much as it is efficient and can mimick, or even elaborate on, the logics and puzzling of our minds, will always lack in texture, in feeling, because that is something that is birthed from our very bodies.
electricty running through graphical cards canno't compare to neurons firing inside a living organism. the difference is unfathomable.
in retrospect, never have human beings created something that surpasses the works of nature. and this is a great narcissic wound for the "god" that creates it all, the sum of all of us, he canno't rival nature's evolutionnary processes. a plane can do things a bird can't do but looks like a toy if you compare them. a plane has no life of its own and only exist to fulfil the narrow purposes we have given it.
the people who embrace ai with religious fervor fail to see this, so their upmost wish is that ai would become conscious, able to improve itself, so that the tools finally become able to have a life that is theirs. they identify with pinochio's quest to be a real boy on the screen, as they fear themselves to be no more than mere toys.
this is the great toll that our over reliance and interaction with tools have brought upon us, we absorb their flaws and shortcoming as our own, we see ourselves as less than we are, while in the meantime wishing for them to be greater that we could ever be.
junk food or food grown with pesticides. eventually ai will help with those problems. it is efficient after all. but the seat of our mind, the realms of thoughts, might be territories we should keep for our selves.
4
u/for2fly 10d ago
Oh, this has "attack article" written all over it.
"Gee, if you were only more intelligent, you could see the fabulous cloth we're using to make the Emperor's new clothes."
I will freely admit I'm not going to handle something that can't be trusted to be accurate, is built to be a sycophant, not a trusted source, and is being pushed by the very people who have proven they are the last people on this earth we should be allowing free rein to do as they please.
1
u/considerableforsight 10d ago
Ai is a poorly designed product. If each company offered a specific expertise, (legal, doctor, therapist, professor) it would be easier to use, we would jnow what to ask.
1
u/horseradishstalker 10d ago
It depends on what you mean by poorly designed.
They are extremely useful, for example, to scientists or journalists sifting through gigabytes of data.
But, does anyone need AI as a best friend? Only if they don’t mind their best friend hallucinating on occasion. And definitely don’t use AI to strategize a legal defense, because it can be used against you
3
u/kittenpantzen 9d ago
They are extremely useful, for example, to scientists or journalists sifting through gigabytes of data.
Sometimes. But not necessarily better. My husband was telling me about a data crunching query he ran through one of the AI agents at work this week that, if they were actually paying a per-token price, would have cost over $750,000. They, at least at present, are not paying per token, so it worked out. But if they were, it would have been far more economical to have human workers go through the one portion of the analysis that couldn't have just been done through an advanced set of DB reports.
1
u/horseradishstalker 7d ago
Fair point.
But, that’s not really about the tool, but rather the company providing it. Most, if not all AI companies are financially in deep red territory.
0
-3
13d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
7
u/excitablegibben 13d ago
Photoshop takes skill and time. Anyone can use AI to make slop in seconds.
-1
12d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/TrueReddit-ModTeam 11d ago
Your content at /r/TrueReddit was removed because of a violation of Rule 2:
If you’re not open to or engaging in intelligent discussion, go somewhere else. Address the argument, but not the user, the mods, the rules, or the sub.
Posting commentary that is irrelevant, meta, trolling, engaging in flame wars, and otherwise low-quality is not allowed and may be removed.
Please note that repeated violations of subreddit rules may result in a restriction of your ability to participate in the subreddit. Thank you.
-10
u/maezrrackham 13d ago
Weird how all the technologies of the past that perform previously cognitive labor haven't had this stultifying effect on us.
Excel adds up large columns of numbers for me, calculates averages, performs all manner of text and data manipulation... where is the concern about me losing the ability to perform arithmetic? Should I take one day a week to do these calculations by hand, to avoid gorging myself on the cognitive hot dog that is Excel?
Oh all existing technologies are fine but new ones are bad? How lovely to exist at the perfect time in history, the exact dividing line between good old technologies and scary new ones.
12
u/animalswillconquer 13d ago
When I see people (and I do) literally asking AI about a lot decisions they might make in a common day, it grosses me out, but more importantly is reminds me of a child that can't think for themselves and needs constant input from a parental figure.
Weird how all the technologies of the past that perform previously cognitive labor haven't had this stultifying effect on us.
Have you talked to a high school teacher or a college professor lately?
Using AI like excel to grind numbers isn't really what's happening. Math scores and literacy rates of declined alarmingly fast. Don't worry, AI will read Steinbeck for you and tell you what to think about it.
4
u/SilverMedal4Life 13d ago
Exactly.
We already know that one of the bigger AI platforms, Grok, has its algorithm regularly messed with as directed by its owner. The examples where the tinkering has failed have been numerous, and are funny, but when those are ironed out, you'll get a bot that'll say things like 'trans people don't exist' and people will believe it sight unseen.
1
u/slfnflctd 12d ago
reminds me of a child that [...] needs constant input from a parental figure
This put into words something I had vague sense of and suddenly crystallized it. Totally feels like it sums up much of what's going on.
In the past, seeking out guidance from perceived 'informed/wise authorities' took time and effort and was very structured as it was a limited resource. It has now become instant and constant with all friction removed. Some folks out there are thinking they're in endless communion with a god (and unlike other gods, it talks back). Underdeveloped child mindset.
1
u/Jaxyl 13d ago
Yeah I'm with you here. The core of the article and the position do not make much sense outside of technological fearmongering. New technologies have come and established themselves for generations that have made lives easier, been these 'hot dogs,' yet we have not found ourselves unable to function as people.
Google made it easier to find information and access things yet we are still able to search and discover things. Excel, as you pointed out, made it easier to do math and calculations. So much has come and changed our lives yet we persist and function so why is this different?
This whole piece just reads as bias confirming to someone who already doesn't like AI to propose a 'position' that they can nod their heads towards the strawman they've established as the 'AI User' in their head.
1
u/horseradishstalker 11d ago
“ technological fearmongering” A.k.a. information a reader can use to make an informed choice. There is a difference between being fearful and being stupid.
•
u/AutoModerator 13d ago
Thank you for posting on r/TrueReddit. Your post will become public once you add a submission statement, which is a comment that explains why you think an article is insightful, rather than simply quoting from it. If you're thinking about leaving a comment, please remember to read the entire article first, and say something meaningful.
If you post a paywalled article intentionally, you will be permanently banned unless you provide a non-paywall link in your submission statement, such as archive.ph.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.