It's the new variable reward system, and it's gonna hook the hell out of us. Another layer in the casino-fication of everything. My recent take is this is all slop, and they know it, all they want to do is sell chips and compute, because that's all the innovation they have left now. The plumbing. What goes in it? Who gives a rat's ass.
This is an excellent analysis...reminds me of the movie Idiocracy. I have been guilty of just using technology instead of really thinking about how it operates and why it operates. We are ruining our lives by making it too comfortable.
Everyone’s saying to use AI or be left behind. But these new studies suggest that AI use is degenerating the brains of those who rely upon it.
It turns out, unsurprisingly, you need to STOP using AI or be left behind. Just like those of us who grew up in an earlier era know how to program computers, just like those of us who aren't addicted to social media are able to create things, etc. Each new tech in the past couple of decades is more of a siren song to avoid that a miraculous new tool.
I will say to the person who has discipline, AI can be a great tool -- I've used Perplexity for research in a construction project I'm doing and for that case, it has been invaluable. But AI should never be used in place of doing your own thinking.
My thing is, if you're relying on AI for creative stuff that much, then your creativity isn't really YOURS. Like what happens if the power goes out, does your ability to make things go with it? I've fooled around with LLMs for songwriting and in my experience it's more work to make the LLM's output not bland than it is just to come up with something myself.
Great post Adam, fully agree. I recall around a decade ago when group chats became overly reliant on memes and meme cultures, where no longer did the group rely on collective wit and banter but the easiest pathway to a few likes was just sending in some clip or meme that was otherwise popular on twitter already and was devoid of context within the group. It pulled us further and further from groupchats, and deeper into Twitter, a loss for obvious reasons. I fear AI doing something similar, no longer do we need to share and rely on eachother for creativity, instead were all content to pull the lever of our slop slot machine and just keep pulling it for something new once were bored. I too would never label myself a luddite but find myself avoiding LLM's outside automated work activities entirely.
It's the new variable reward system, and it's gonna hook the hell out of us. Another layer in the casino-fication of everything. My recent take is this is all slop, and they know it, all they want to do is sell chips and compute, because that's all the innovation they have left now. The plumbing. What goes in it? Who gives a rat's ass.
This is an excellent analysis...reminds me of the movie Idiocracy. I have been guilty of just using technology instead of really thinking about how it operates and why it operates. We are ruining our lives by making it too comfortable.
Everyone’s saying to use AI or be left behind. But these new studies suggest that AI use is degenerating the brains of those who rely upon it.
It turns out, unsurprisingly, you need to STOP using AI or be left behind. Just like those of us who grew up in an earlier era know how to program computers, just like those of us who aren't addicted to social media are able to create things, etc. Each new tech in the past couple of decades is more of a siren song to avoid that a miraculous new tool.
I will say to the person who has discipline, AI can be a great tool -- I've used Perplexity for research in a construction project I'm doing and for that case, it has been invaluable. But AI should never be used in place of doing your own thinking.
If we’re not careful, AI may soon be a marionette, pulling silicon strings and making us meatbags dance. More here: https://www.whitenoise.email/p/the-inverse-mechanical-turk-meat
This is good
Thank you!
My thing is, if you're relying on AI for creative stuff that much, then your creativity isn't really YOURS. Like what happens if the power goes out, does your ability to make things go with it? I've fooled around with LLMs for songwriting and in my experience it's more work to make the LLM's output not bland than it is just to come up with something myself.
Wall-E is more prescient by the day
Great post Adam, fully agree. I recall around a decade ago when group chats became overly reliant on memes and meme cultures, where no longer did the group rely on collective wit and banter but the easiest pathway to a few likes was just sending in some clip or meme that was otherwise popular on twitter already and was devoid of context within the group. It pulled us further and further from groupchats, and deeper into Twitter, a loss for obvious reasons. I fear AI doing something similar, no longer do we need to share and rely on eachother for creativity, instead were all content to pull the lever of our slop slot machine and just keep pulling it for something new once were bored. I too would never label myself a luddite but find myself avoiding LLM's outside automated work activities entirely.
“The sky is falling…!”