First, "cognitive labor" is a form of labor - different to being creative. If you'd otherwise have needed to drudgerously write up your theorem, etc. and that is now gone, you are freed up to do even more great work. Compare a tractor to a backhoe. On a hobby farm you're done super fast. Or you can get a bigger farm and spend the same amount of time in a more leveraged way.
Second; the joyful moments we get from things like finding generalizable abstractions and nice solutions. Humans can climb infinitely high conceptual hierarchies - we'll never stop climbing, using the previous ones as tools to find the next. As we do, we gain joy with each discovery because. We get so much done with brains that run on 20 watts - are we tuned to receive a neurochemical reward for finding cognitive efficiency? If AI means more concepts are discovered the tower gets taller - and we find those joyful moments more often. And if there are infinite moments to be found, why not go as fast as possible!
Third; everyone else is doing it, it's a baseline skill. Knowing how to work without AI is like knowing how to ride a horse. Useful and fun in some contexts! Plus - only 150ish years ago you had to ride a horse to get around. Cars were new; toys for the rich. But cars got so good so fast that we reconfigured whole cities.
New divisions are emerging in the lump of roles humans had. AI takes away work and lets us do more with less - just like every mechanization that came before! It's compressing roles within everyone's job, even as it creates new roles.
There's so much to be excited about and you by reading HN are better positioned than most to do so! Fear is a rational response to change. But so is hope :)
gleenn 22 minutes ago [-]
3blue1brown has the absolute most educational and entertaining videos. Always fascinated by his animations which are custom programmed by him. I also appreciate the diversity of topics covered from deep math to software to science.
tcdent 4 minutes ago [-]
What does it mean to "go into" math?
TuxedoBuddy 1 minutes ago [-]
According to the video he means pursue it as an academic endeavor.
caaqil 10 minutes ago [-]
In other news, there's never been a better time to be a software developer. Come to think of it, there's also never been a better time to invest in learning copy-editing and proof-reading as a side hustle. It's a Brave New World. Everything is fine, the demand just got expanded, the pie got bigger, nothing more. New doors will be opened, nothing has changed; in fact, everything improved. Stochastic parrots are no match for our carbon-based g.
jwpapi 3 minutes ago [-]
I mean if you read some history it’s not the first time complete workforces have been replaced. It doesn’t mean the same jobs stay, but usually there will be something to do.
mibsl 18 minutes ago [-]
Too early to tell, but IMO unlikely. Let's see what his take will be once an AI can propose a topic, write the script, animate, and narrate a good educational math video.
pxtail 6 minutes ago [-]
He won't care because he has established position and is set. It will be just like everybody else - if the individual is in the top of the food chain then he/she is all over it how you are using it wrong and how you should use it (don't forget to follow and subscribe).
firefoxd 16 minutes ago [-]
That's already happening. And we call it AI slop.
gobdovan 2 minutes ago [-]
I tried watching 3b1b over the years, really wanted to enjoy it. But I never found the way he presents things intuitive and never got a palpable intuition that helped me with math classes or work.
I saw some clearly AI slop made videos and got much better understanding of topics, since they don't do foreshadowing for an awe-inspiring connection that we'd admire together after 15 min videos, the clankers just get to the point. Not claiming those videos are too useful either, but I did however see accelerated learning gains from asking LLMs to explain math and algos, something I have never experienced from any of the educational STEM Youtube channels.
mibsl 12 minutes ago [-]
"good"
EDIT: And don't get me wrong, I hope it doesn't happen for a long time, ideally never. But what would his arguments be if it does?
Rendered at 21:58:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
First, "cognitive labor" is a form of labor - different to being creative. If you'd otherwise have needed to drudgerously write up your theorem, etc. and that is now gone, you are freed up to do even more great work. Compare a tractor to a backhoe. On a hobby farm you're done super fast. Or you can get a bigger farm and spend the same amount of time in a more leveraged way.
Second; the joyful moments we get from things like finding generalizable abstractions and nice solutions. Humans can climb infinitely high conceptual hierarchies - we'll never stop climbing, using the previous ones as tools to find the next. As we do, we gain joy with each discovery because. We get so much done with brains that run on 20 watts - are we tuned to receive a neurochemical reward for finding cognitive efficiency? If AI means more concepts are discovered the tower gets taller - and we find those joyful moments more often. And if there are infinite moments to be found, why not go as fast as possible!
Third; everyone else is doing it, it's a baseline skill. Knowing how to work without AI is like knowing how to ride a horse. Useful and fun in some contexts! Plus - only 150ish years ago you had to ride a horse to get around. Cars were new; toys for the rich. But cars got so good so fast that we reconfigured whole cities.
New divisions are emerging in the lump of roles humans had. AI takes away work and lets us do more with less - just like every mechanization that came before! It's compressing roles within everyone's job, even as it creates new roles.
There's so much to be excited about and you by reading HN are better positioned than most to do so! Fear is a rational response to change. But so is hope :)
I saw some clearly AI slop made videos and got much better understanding of topics, since they don't do foreshadowing for an awe-inspiring connection that we'd admire together after 15 min videos, the clankers just get to the point. Not claiming those videos are too useful either, but I did however see accelerated learning gains from asking LLMs to explain math and algos, something I have never experienced from any of the educational STEM Youtube channels.
EDIT: And don't get me wrong, I hope it doesn't happen for a long time, ideally never. But what would his arguments be if it does?