30 years ago my math teacher already referred to our calculators (Casio fx82s) as “cerebral prosthetics”. I’ve always used that for our bicycles of the mind.
Computers change who I am, for example they make me remember better and be more punctual. Probably indeed my smartphone messes with my ability to hold sustained attention.
But this article. it feels like one of those “why so complicated” ones. Why “our consciousness is partly in a machine”. It’s all just a matter of definitions. For example advocates of EMT and non-advocates probably just differ in some definition. It feels so unimportant. Other than that, nice read.
piskov · 2h ago
Yet most of the people now struggle with some basic calculations: “your calculator history is more embarrassing than your browser history”.
Ie “use it or loose it” kind of vibe.
That’s why one of the possible threats of AI is if one would “forget” how to reason. Or even worse: brain rewires itself to never being able to reason again.
Then again, for me personally it’s a very low probability in our lifetime: ie no that kind of earth-shattering changes of either real AI or, say, nuclear fusion in this century.
However I would love to see long-term studies of someone really smart start only watching tictoc, reels and shorts (and doing nothing else). With brain scanning and what have you.
eviks · 15m ago
> most of the people now struggle with some basic calculations
When was the time "most" didn't struggle?
bavell · 2h ago
> Ie “use it or loose it” kind of vibe.
> That’s why one of the possible threats of AI is if one would “forget” how to reason. Or even worse: brain rewires itself to never being able to reason again.
The "WALL-E/Idiocracy"-ification of humanity. It won't get so bad that we lose our ability to reason, but we're definitely losing something. Perhaps it's just our inevitable evolution.
roenxi · 3h ago
I've read the abstract and disagreed with it enough that I don't want to read the article proper.
1) The abstract appears to be an opinion piece; I don't know how they do things in philosophical journals but I would hope for a dryer standard.
2) Nature is really messy - it'd make sense if parts of our bodys were actually parasites. The immune system, gut flora, skin mites are all obvious places where foreign hostile bodies might colonise then integrate into humanity over time. If an addition has any benefits evolutionary pressure will eventually cause it to become symbiotic.
3) Humans are by design easy to manipulate. We're social animals built to group up behind leaders and do what they say. There are brutal social hierarchies where low status humans live relatively unpleasant lives because high-status humans think that is reasonable. We're not built to unthinkingly optimise out own personal outcomes of make all the decisions ourselves. Humans being manipulated is not, in and of itself, a hint that things are going wrong.
4) "It is not plausible for a part of the cognitive system to be designed to thwart the goals and desires of the user in the way a smartphone is" - it absolutely is, the #1 enemy of most people is their own mind. It leads them to do wildly stupid things. There are people who spend their entire lives working to overcome their own cognitive systems to achieve peace and happiness.
I think it’s important to highlight this part of the abstract:
> modern smartphones are better understood as external to, but symbiotic with, our minds, and, sometimes even parasitic on us, rather than as cognitive extensions
“Symbiotic with, and sometimes parasitic.” It feels like the symbiotic bit is more on point overall.
voidhorse · 3h ago
Parasites. Period. This thing fills my head with a bunch of images from distant warped realities, summoned up out of thin air, it clogs my brain with a flood of other voices, it keeps me moving constantly from one mental landscape to the next.
It is precisely the fever dream experience of a parasitic host as the fiend sucks the life from it.
aeve890 · 2h ago
>Parasites. Period. This thing fills my head with a bunch of images from distant warped realities, summoned up out of thin air, it clogs my brain with a flood of other voices,
It does all that by it self? Of course not. This thing is not autonomous. Every app that _fill your head_ was your choice to install, signup and OPEN every time. It's like saying drugs are parasites. Of course they aren't. Your choices made you addicted to the thing. What happened to agency? Everyone is now a slave of social media apps?
bavell · 2h ago
Is it the phone or is it the internet you're lamenting? Sounds like the latter. I think TFA misattributes this as well.
voidhorse · 2h ago
The internet is the venom delivered by the parasite as it feeds on my attention.
api · 3h ago
Uninstall social media.
At this point I’m pretty convinced that social media is a net negative for humanity with little redeeming quality.
There was a time when it did connect people, like you could meet people or find old friends, but that was long ago deprioritized or even stripped away. Now it’s just a pure chum feed that serves up either brain rot trash or political fear and rage bait.
TV was always full of crap but it also gave rise to great shows, to art and lasting culture. It was a medium of mixed value. Social media doesn’t even have that going for it unless some day people celebrate the great Pepe memes. Everything it creates is disposable low effort trash. Nothing worth keeping. You could delete it all and everyone would forget a week later.
voidhorse · 3h ago
Hacker news is the only form of social media I use!
api · 3h ago
This is closer to a small forum.
I guess I use some slacks and discords and a few lists but that’s about it.
bavell · 2h ago
Just HN for me as well. Used to visit slashdot before it turned to crap. Got off FB over a decade ago, no other SM accounts.
grugagag · 2h ago
Just be aware that people spend more time on HN than they really want to, HN even has a no procrastination setting where you block the access after some time spent here. So, aside dark patterns which HN does not have, it seems that the amount and frequency of information that cause some kind of dopamine disregulation.
metalman · 3h ago
example, find that pic, or file,aaaaaaaaand anyway it's there somewhere.....I think
example, try and create a file or take a pic,ooops too late droped your phone, and oh right, exactly what format that is universul, never mind, no point, it's someone property and closed tech that dictates who, when, and where you can exchange information with.
search is completly broken
it's like bieng stuck in a maze that is activly
working against you, and it is even odds that a dog eared encyclopedia and a telephone book can yield acceptable results
Computers change who I am, for example they make me remember better and be more punctual. Probably indeed my smartphone messes with my ability to hold sustained attention.
But this article. it feels like one of those “why so complicated” ones. Why “our consciousness is partly in a machine”. It’s all just a matter of definitions. For example advocates of EMT and non-advocates probably just differ in some definition. It feels so unimportant. Other than that, nice read.
Ie “use it or loose it” kind of vibe.
That’s why one of the possible threats of AI is if one would “forget” how to reason. Or even worse: brain rewires itself to never being able to reason again.
Then again, for me personally it’s a very low probability in our lifetime: ie no that kind of earth-shattering changes of either real AI or, say, nuclear fusion in this century.
However I would love to see long-term studies of someone really smart start only watching tictoc, reels and shorts (and doing nothing else). With brain scanning and what have you.
When was the time "most" didn't struggle?
> That’s why one of the possible threats of AI is if one would “forget” how to reason. Or even worse: brain rewires itself to never being able to reason again.
The "WALL-E/Idiocracy"-ification of humanity. It won't get so bad that we lose our ability to reason, but we're definitely losing something. Perhaps it's just our inevitable evolution.
1) The abstract appears to be an opinion piece; I don't know how they do things in philosophical journals but I would hope for a dryer standard.
2) Nature is really messy - it'd make sense if parts of our bodys were actually parasites. The immune system, gut flora, skin mites are all obvious places where foreign hostile bodies might colonise then integrate into humanity over time. If an addition has any benefits evolutionary pressure will eventually cause it to become symbiotic.
3) Humans are by design easy to manipulate. We're social animals built to group up behind leaders and do what they say. There are brutal social hierarchies where low status humans live relatively unpleasant lives because high-status humans think that is reasonable. We're not built to unthinkingly optimise out own personal outcomes of make all the decisions ourselves. Humans being manipulated is not, in and of itself, a hint that things are going wrong.
4) "It is not plausible for a part of the cognitive system to be designed to thwart the goals and desires of the user in the way a smartphone is" - it absolutely is, the #1 enemy of most people is their own mind. It leads them to do wildly stupid things. There are people who spend their entire lives working to overcome their own cognitive systems to achieve peace and happiness.
> modern smartphones are better understood as external to, but symbiotic with, our minds, and, sometimes even parasitic on us, rather than as cognitive extensions
“Symbiotic with, and sometimes parasitic.” It feels like the symbiotic bit is more on point overall.
It is precisely the fever dream experience of a parasitic host as the fiend sucks the life from it.
It does all that by it self? Of course not. This thing is not autonomous. Every app that _fill your head_ was your choice to install, signup and OPEN every time. It's like saying drugs are parasites. Of course they aren't. Your choices made you addicted to the thing. What happened to agency? Everyone is now a slave of social media apps?
At this point I’m pretty convinced that social media is a net negative for humanity with little redeeming quality.
There was a time when it did connect people, like you could meet people or find old friends, but that was long ago deprioritized or even stripped away. Now it’s just a pure chum feed that serves up either brain rot trash or political fear and rage bait.
TV was always full of crap but it also gave rise to great shows, to art and lasting culture. It was a medium of mixed value. Social media doesn’t even have that going for it unless some day people celebrate the great Pepe memes. Everything it creates is disposable low effort trash. Nothing worth keeping. You could delete it all and everyone would forget a week later.
I guess I use some slacks and discords and a few lists but that’s about it.
always almost never quite right