I'd argue that a huge portion of the working population have for a long time exhibited an inability to think - probably in part due to the meaningless, widget churning work they're tasked with - I don't think that'll change, however being empowered to learn and try things beyond your individual grasp by leveraging AI as for example a coding parter can unlock whole new ways of thinking in domains they'd otherwise not have the time to investigate.
Watch out horses! The motorised carriage is going to do away with your ability to gallop!
joenot443 · 1h ago
> Another professor notes that AI papers are replete with “seemingly logical statements that are actually full of emptiness.” A depressing thought is that students are incapable of discerning such intellectual vapor because their heads are empty.
This is depressing, indeed. I think this type of empty-headedness has been growing for a while and isn't just a result of AI, I think it's a result of people generally not having a well-tuned mental barometer for what makes for strong writing.
I think if you didn't read much as a young person, the sort of grammatically-sound and calmly-smug prose that GPT produces probably passes as "good" writing because it has all of the characteristics you remember that good writing must possess. If I may..
> Summarizing paragraphs must begin with strong statements. References can be made to previous points, perhaps acknowledge weaknesses, but the main structure remains the same. Our writing is confident, familiar, and satisfied - just like writing should be.
Unfortunately, I think this is similar to someone growing used to "good" meals from Cheesecake Factory and allowing that to become their reference point for fine dining. All the pieces are there, nothing about it is distinctly "wrong", but something feels off.
I don't pretend to have a solution.
pgryko · 2h ago
What happens when AGI is able to think better than us? Will governments close schools and universities as its no longer economically useful?
lm28469 · 39m ago
School, and education at large, isn't about teaching you what's economically useful. It's about building a society sharing a common base of values/morals, history, patriotism, as well as the basics of science, maths, &c. You want people who are able to think for themselves to iter and create new things which are in the continuity of your country's history.
The vast majority of everything you learn before university isn't that useful if all you care about is creating robots for your economy.
> What happens when AGI ...
What happens IF AGI ...
viralsink · 1h ago
It would be unethical not to have an AI life coach since your own decisions would be not optimal more often than not.
brador · 43m ago
The human decision maker still wins if you’re optimising your life for novelty.
nottorp · 4h ago
> Another professor notes that AI papers are replete with “seemingly logical statements that are actually full of emptiness.”
In my country we were calling this "wooden language" back when were under a communist dictatorship behind the iron curtain.
Lots of words that are designed to avoid any responsability for anything.
See also https://smcleod.net/2025/03/the-democratisation-paradox-what...
Watch out horses! The motorised carriage is going to do away with your ability to gallop!
This is depressing, indeed. I think this type of empty-headedness has been growing for a while and isn't just a result of AI, I think it's a result of people generally not having a well-tuned mental barometer for what makes for strong writing.
I think if you didn't read much as a young person, the sort of grammatically-sound and calmly-smug prose that GPT produces probably passes as "good" writing because it has all of the characteristics you remember that good writing must possess. If I may..
> Summarizing paragraphs must begin with strong statements. References can be made to previous points, perhaps acknowledge weaknesses, but the main structure remains the same. Our writing is confident, familiar, and satisfied - just like writing should be.
Unfortunately, I think this is similar to someone growing used to "good" meals from Cheesecake Factory and allowing that to become their reference point for fine dining. All the pieces are there, nothing about it is distinctly "wrong", but something feels off.
I don't pretend to have a solution.
The vast majority of everything you learn before university isn't that useful if all you care about is creating robots for your economy.
> What happens when AGI ...
What happens IF AGI ...
In my country we were calling this "wooden language" back when were under a communist dictatorship behind the iron curtain.
Lots of words that are designed to avoid any responsability for anything.
Now we're automating this.