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628 points cratermoon | 6 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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gyomu ◴[] No.44461457[source]
Broadly agreed with all the points outlined in there.

But for me the biggest issue with all this — that I don't see covered in here, or maybe just a little bit in passing — is what all of this is doing to beginners, and the learning pipeline.

> There are people I once respected who, apparently, don’t actually enjoy doing the thing. They would like to describe what they want and receive Whatever — some beige sludge that vaguely resembles it. That isn’t programming, though.

> I glimpsed someone on Twitter a few days ago, also scoffing at the idea that anyone would decide not to use the Whatever machine. I can’t remember exactly what they said, but it was something like: “I created a whole album, complete with album art, in 3.5 hours. Why wouldn’t I use the make it easier machine?”

When you're a beginner, it's totally normal to not really want to put in the hard work. You try drawing a picture, and it sucks. You try playing the guitar, and you can't even get simple notes right. Of course a machine where you can just say "a picture in the style of Pokémon, but of my cat" and get a perfect result out is much more tempting to a 12 year old kid than the prospect of having to grind for 5 years before being kind of good.

But up until now, you had no choice and to keep making crappy pictures and playing crappy songs until you actually start to develop a taste for the effort, and a few years later you find yourself actually pretty darn competent at the thing. That's a pretty virtuous cycle.

I shudder to think where we'll be if the corporate-media machine keeps hammering the message "you don't have to bother learning how to draw, drawing is hard, just get ChatGPT to draw pictures for you" to young people for years to come.

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maegul ◴[] No.44461502[source]
Agreed!

The only silver lining I can see is that a new perspective may be forced on how well or badly we’ve facilitated learning, usability, generally navigating pain points and maybe even all the dusty presumptions around the education / vocational / professional-development pipeline.

Before, demand for employment/salary pushed people through. Now, if actual and reliable understanding, expertise and quality is desirable, maybe paying attention to how well the broader system cultivates and can harness these attributes can be of value.

Intuitively though, my feeling is that we’re in some cultural turbulence, likely of a truly historical magnitude, in which nothing can be taken for granted and some “battles” were likely lost long ago when we started down this modern-computing path.

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bruce511 ◴[] No.44461579[source]
To be fair, LLMs are just the most recent step in a long road of doing the same thing.

At any point of progress in history you can look backwards and forwards and the world is different.

Before tractors a man with an ox could plough x field in y time. After tractors he can plough much larger areas. The nature of farming changes. (Fewer people needed to farm more land. )

The car arrives, horses leave. Computers arrive, the typing pool goes away. Typing was a skill, now everyone does it and spell checkers hide imperfections.

So yeah LLMs make "drawing easier". Which means just that. Is that good or bad? Well I can't draw the old fashioned way so for me, good.

Cooking used to be hard. Today cooking is easy, and very accessible. More importantly good food (cooked at home or elsewhere) is accessible to a much higher % of the population. Preparing the evening meal no longer starts with "pluck 2 chickens" and grinding a kilo of dried corn.

So yeah, LLMs are here. And yes things will change. Some old jobs will become obsolete. Some new ones will appear. This is normal, it's been happening forever.

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thankyoufriend ◴[] No.44461719[source]
The difference between GenAI and your examples is a theft component. They stole our data - your data - and used it to build a machine that diverts wealth to the rich. The only equitable way for GenAI to move forward is if we all own a share of it, since it would not exist in its current form without our data. GenAI should be a Universal Basic Asset.
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bruce511 ◴[] No.44461819[source]
I appreciate the idealism but your argument has some flaws.

Firstly the "theft component" isn't exactly new. There have always been rich and poor.

Secondly everyone is standing on the shoulders of giants. The Beatles were influenced by the works of others. Paul and John learned to write by mimicking other writers.

That code you right is the pinicle of endless work dine by others. By Ada Lovelace, and Charles Babbage, and Alan Turing and Brian Kernigan and Denis Ritchie and Doug Englebart and thousands and thousands more.

By your logic the entire output of all industries for all foreseeable generations should be universally owned. [1]

But that's not the direction we have built society on. Rather society has evolved in the US to reward those who create value out of the common space. The oil in Texas doesn't belong to all Texans, it doesn't belong to the pump maker, it belongs to the company that pumps the oil.

Equally there's no such thing as 'your data'. It's your choice to publish or not. Information cannot be 'owned'. Works can be copyrighted, but frankly you have a bigger argument on that front going after Google (and Google Books, not to mention the Internet Archive) than AI. AI may train on data you produced, but it does not copy it.

[1] I'm actually for a basic income model, we don't need everyone working all day like it's 1900 anymore. That means more taxes on companies and the ultra wealthy. Apparently voters disagree as they continue to vote for people who prefer the opposite.

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1. sirwhinesalot ◴[] No.44461974[source]
I think your last point is very reductionist. Nearly every country ends up in a voting situation where only 2 parties can realistically win. A diverse parlament results in paralysis and the fall of government (happened in my home country multiple times).

The two parties that end up viable tend to be financed quite heavily by said wealthy, including being proped by the media said wealthy control.

The more right wing side will promise tax cuts (also for the poor that don't seem to materialize) while the more left wing side will promise to tax the rich (but in an easily dodgeable way that only ends up affecting the middle class).

Many people understand this and it is barely part of the consideration in their vote. The last election in the US was a social battle, not really an economic one. And I think the wealthy backers wanted it that way.

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2. bruce511 ◴[] No.44462830[source]
Im not sure why you are being downvoted. You make a reasonable argument.

I would contest some of your points though.

Firstly, not every country votes, not all that vote have 2 viable parties, so that's a flaw in your argument.

Equally most elections produce a winner. That winner can, and does, get stuff done. The US is paralyzed because it takes 60% to win the senate, which hasn't happened for a while. So US elections are set up so "no one wins". Which of course leads to overreach etc that we're seeing currently.

There's a danger when living inside a system that you assume everywhere else is the same. There's a danger when you live in a system that heavily propagandizes its own superiority, that you start to feel like everywhere else is worse.

If we are the best, and this system is the best, and it's terrible, then clearly all hope is lost.

But what I maybe, just maybe, all those things you absolutely, positively, know to be true, are not true? Is that even worth thinking about?

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3. sirwhinesalot ◴[] No.44463205[source]
Just to be clear, I'm not a US citizen.

But I know people whose preference would be something like Ron Paul > Bernie Sanders > Trump > Kamala, which might sound utterly bizarre until you realize that there are multiple factors at play and "we want tax cuts for the rich" is not one of them.

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4. bruce511 ◴[] No.44464578{3}[source]
When you vote for a guy who plans to raise prices, when you vote for a guy who already tried to remove Healthcare, when you vote for a guy who gives tax breaks to the rich, when you vote for a guy who is a grifter, then don't complain when you get what you voted for.

People are welcome to whatever preference they like. Democracy let's them choose. But US democracy is deliberately planned to prefer the "no one wins" scenario. That's not the democracy most of the world uses.

5. johnnyanmac ◴[] No.44498644[source]
> Nearly every country ends up in a voting situation where only 2 parties can realistically win.

Not necessarily. That's a result of first past the post, not of voting in general. ranked choice voting solves a lot of this extremism 2 party system. The dominant parties need to at least pretend to appel enough to moderatism that a 3rd party isn't outvoting both of them.

>Many people understand this and it is barely part of the consideration in their vote. The last election in the US was a social battle, not really an economic one.

So the right wingers never really cared about inflation, egg prices, and the job market. I wish I could pretend to be shocked at this point.

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6. sirwhinesalot ◴[] No.44519820[source]
> Not necessarily. That's a result of first past the post, not of voting in general. ranked choice voting solves a lot of this extremism 2 party system. The dominant parties need to at least pretend to appel enough to moderatism that a 3rd party isn't outvoting both of them.

Yup, we really need to fix this problem in many countries. Ranked choice is a great idea that should be pushed for.

> So the right wingers never really cared about inflation, egg prices, and the job market. I wish I could pretend to be shocked at this point.

That was my perception of it at least. I'm not a US citizen. Job market might have been a big one but even that is partially social as a rejection of globalism.