In the early 1970s, most folks could do some mental arithmetic.
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@dabeaz/117259349418891202
In the early 1970s, most folks could do some mental arithmetic. They had to. The arrival of pocket calculators quickly reduced most people's ability to do "math" in their heads.
Ditto with Google Maps: people can't navigate without it. A recent study of Polish radiologists using LLMs to assist showed a measurable drop in the doctor's own ability to diagnose without them
LLMs will have that effect on programmers' ability to code.
More broadly: for people to be able to think for themselves.
@robpike one agreed, sir. one reason I refuse to use them
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@dabeaz/117259349418891202
In the early 1970s, most folks could do some mental arithmetic. They had to. The arrival of pocket calculators quickly reduced most people's ability to do "math" in their heads.
Ditto with Google Maps: people can't navigate without it. A recent study of Polish radiologists using LLMs to assist showed a measurable drop in the doctor's own ability to diagnose without them
LLMs will have that effect on programmers' ability to code.
More broadly: for people to be able to think for themselves.
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Our tech overlords believe that's OK. Maybe it is. I like calculators, I like maps. But I worry every day about what LLMs are doing to people's brains.
It's why I won't touch the damn things. I like my ability to think.
@robpike i wish that i could be one hundredth as productive as you without LLMs, I wonder if maybe your experience as a top .01% programmer changes your perspective here
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@robpike i wish that i could be one hundredth as productive as you without LLMs, I wonder if maybe your experience as a top .01% programmer changes your perspective here
@robpike i say that as a pretty OK programmer and person who admires you a great deal
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Our tech overlords believe that's OK. Maybe it is. I like calculators, I like maps. But I worry every day about what LLMs are doing to people's brains.
It's why I won't touch the damn things. I like my ability to think.
@robpike I thought I was being unreasonably cautious in avoiding LLMs for my programming work. I thought I might be missing something but at the same time I was dismayed at some co-workers reaching for an LLM instead of just thinking a bit harder about a problem.
I'm willing to take the chance that I'm missing something because I'm pretty sure I'm not
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@dabeaz/117259349418891202
In the early 1970s, most folks could do some mental arithmetic. They had to. The arrival of pocket calculators quickly reduced most people's ability to do "math" in their heads.
Ditto with Google Maps: people can't navigate without it. A recent study of Polish radiologists using LLMs to assist showed a measurable drop in the doctor's own ability to diagnose without them
LLMs will have that effect on programmers' ability to code.
More broadly: for people to be able to think for themselves.
@robpike @dabeaz I'm already seeing it: people who can (it seems) no longer bring themselves to do work without it, even though I know they're capable because I saw them do so mere months ago.
It's not only a loss of skill, though surely that will come in time, it's also a loss of will and motivation to engage with a problem.
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Our tech overlords believe that's OK. Maybe it is. I like calculators, I like maps. But I worry every day about what LLMs are doing to people's brains.
It's why I won't touch the damn things. I like my ability to think.
@robpike if, as some people say, LLMs were indeed a way to scale up code production, and produce correct code, much like compilers do, and putting aside ethical/ecological matters aside (even though they're the prime reason i have an issue with LLMs), I believe the argument could be made. But the fact is that this is not how things work with LLM, with their stochastic processes.
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Our tech overlords believe that's OK. Maybe it is. I like calculators, I like maps. But I worry every day about what LLMs are doing to people's brains.
It's why I won't touch the damn things. I like my ability to think.
@robpike It's the intersection of liking my ability to think and utter disgust for grifting bullshit spewers.
Incidentally I have also stopped setting GPS destinations for anything not time critical or very long distance.
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Our tech overlords believe that's OK. Maybe it is. I like calculators, I like maps. But I worry every day about what LLMs are doing to people's brains.
It's why I won't touch the damn things. I like my ability to think.
@robpike at one point I realized that to be a successful businessman it was most probably an advantage if you could do arithmetic in your head, and that changed a bit my perspective on calculators
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Our tech overlords believe that's OK. Maybe it is. I like calculators, I like maps. But I worry every day about what LLMs are doing to people's brains.
It's why I won't touch the damn things. I like my ability to think.
@robpike The test for me is whether it helps me understand something or substitutes for me understanding something. LLMs, at least as currently implemented, seem overwhelmingly to be aiming for the latter.
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@robpike i wish that i could be one hundredth as productive as you without LLMs, I wonder if maybe your experience as a top .01% programmer changes your perspective here
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@robpike at one point I realized that to be a successful businessman it was most probably an advantage if you could do arithmetic in your head, and that changed a bit my perspective on calculators
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Our tech overlords believe that's OK. Maybe it is. I like calculators, I like maps. But I worry every day about what LLMs are doing to people's brains.
It's why I won't touch the damn things. I like my ability to think.
@robpike calculators and maps took over specific activities. AI is taking over thinking, we're giving up the ability to make our own every day decisions.
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@robpike i wish that i could be one hundredth as productive as you without LLMs, I wonder if maybe your experience as a top .01% programmer changes your perspective here
@llimllib
> changes your perspectiveThis debraining thing is making brilliant programmers mediocre, and average Joes dumb. The conditionals mishap (think backdoor) they would spot as you typed it some 30 months ago now can pass through in their own production. The ability to do real architectural work vanishes a bit slower, but it is noticeable. And debraining current generation of programmers is not the worst thing around artificial idiocy, the chop on junior's ability to _learn_ is the most terrifying effect I saw. It looks like now it physically pains them if you ask 'why' or 'how'.
How can we pass the craft to our younglings exposed to this drug if they conditioned themselves to be reverse centaurs?
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@dabeaz/117259349418891202
In the early 1970s, most folks could do some mental arithmetic. They had to. The arrival of pocket calculators quickly reduced most people's ability to do "math" in their heads.
Ditto with Google Maps: people can't navigate without it. A recent study of Polish radiologists using LLMs to assist showed a measurable drop in the doctor's own ability to diagnose without them
LLMs will have that effect on programmers' ability to code.
More broadly: for people to be able to think for themselves.
@robpike @ChrisMayLA6 @dabeaz
Might as well go all the way and outlaw clean public water, electricity, public waste water, and health and dental care so we can get back to surviving like escaped domestic pets. -
Our tech overlords believe that's OK. Maybe it is. I like calculators, I like maps. But I worry every day about what LLMs are doing to people's brains.
It's why I won't touch the damn things. I like my ability to think.
@robpike Have you programmed with them before? Or are you concerned that once you tried them, you wouldn't be able to stop?
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@dabeaz/117259349418891202
In the early 1970s, most folks could do some mental arithmetic. They had to. The arrival of pocket calculators quickly reduced most people's ability to do "math" in their heads.
Ditto with Google Maps: people can't navigate without it. A recent study of Polish radiologists using LLMs to assist showed a measurable drop in the doctor's own ability to diagnose without them
LLMs will have that effect on programmers' ability to code.
More broadly: for people to be able to think for themselves.
@robpike Years ago, someone no doubt being paid shit wages accidently short-changed me at a store register. They tried to stand behind their wrong math, not thinking a guy with long hair and old clothes like me could add and subtract 4 places with the decimal after the first two in my head. My calculation stood however. The line was building up and I suggested counting the money in the register and that was that.
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@robpike @dabeaz I'm already seeing it: people who can (it seems) no longer bring themselves to do work without it, even though I know they're capable because I saw them do so mere months ago.
It's not only a loss of skill, though surely that will come in time, it's also a loss of will and motivation to engage with a problem.
It's pretty bad in universities too. Lots of students using them, cheesing their grades with minimal brainpower.
I don't, because I love solving problems (why let a machine have all the fun), but its frustrating to see people being so short sighted. Has nobody read Dune in the past 20 years?Basking in the sheer wave of panic that floods the library when people lose access to their chatbots all at once (thanks, cloudflare), is, admittedly, incredibly funny.
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@dabeaz/117259349418891202
In the early 1970s, most folks could do some mental arithmetic. They had to. The arrival of pocket calculators quickly reduced most people's ability to do "math" in their heads.
Ditto with Google Maps: people can't navigate without it. A recent study of Polish radiologists using LLMs to assist showed a measurable drop in the doctor's own ability to diagnose without them
LLMs will have that effect on programmers' ability to code.
More broadly: for people to be able to think for themselves.
so what if we can't do mental arithmetic
who cares
we have calculators that cost like a buck
I can use my brain for other thingsas for that "polish study" I bet if you carefully read it, and understood what you read, that the study would not be very pursuasive
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@dabeaz/117259349418891202
In the early 1970s, most folks could do some mental arithmetic. They had to. The arrival of pocket calculators quickly reduced most people's ability to do "math" in their heads.
Ditto with Google Maps: people can't navigate without it. A recent study of Polish radiologists using LLMs to assist showed a measurable drop in the doctor's own ability to diagnose without them
LLMs will have that effect on programmers' ability to code.
More broadly: for people to be able to think for themselves.
@robpike I've been leaving Google Maps off my phone and using stuff like CoMaps, which forces you to actually know how to navigate/know what you're looking for. Even for me, as someone totally inept at spatial skills and direction, it has helped me intuit navigation just a bit better.
