Is AI making the human race dumber?

[Bradskii]

PS: Anyone who wants to call me anti-intellectual, go for it. I'm feeling practically anti-everything this morning.

I'm not going to call you anti science. Because I guess that 99% of science is entirely acceptable to you, whether your're an expert in any particular field or not. So if you want to dump on a particular scientist or intellectual or belief then you're not anti science. Or anti intellectual. Or anti religion. You just have a beef with one aspect of whatever one of them says. Or one aspect on which almost all of them agree.

Go start a thread, whether it's flat earth, moon landing, global warming...whatever.

 

[sjastro]

That presumes that intellectualism is a promotion of education, science, and critical thinking. Having seen what some self-described intellectuals consider education and science, and seeing them pan critical thinking, I find that extremely doubtful.

Case in point: Remember the recent pandemic and "intellectuals" mocking people who did their own research? More obscure is "intellectuals" promoting Common Core for education, even though these standards were less than what some state already had. You really don't want to see what's in some history textbooks now. Regardless of politics, what I've seen as of about a couple of decades ago had factual errors. How do I know? Because my family had known one minor historical figure, which archeologists had found evidence supporting, but one textbook cast doubt that this person had ever existed. And then there was the practical dismissal of a major Indian nation in the state for another, smaller, one that was more "glamourous." And that's just the low hanging fruit.

As for critical thinking, if you feel like trolling, question anthropomorphic global warming, then sit back and watch the fun.

Rather than trying to define intellectualism a clearer picture is obtained by asking what is anti-intellectualism?
The answer is anti-intellectualism is a form of discrimination, the anti-intellectual champions the common person and it is not only scientists that have been historically discriminated against but also philosophers, writers, artists, legal scholars to name a few.
These days with major events such as climate change and the after effects of Covid-19, anti-intellectualism is largely targeted towards scientists.

To use climate change as an example why is the most common criticism is that it is a hoax?
Instead of showing why the science is wrong using critical thinking which becomes a major casualty, smearing the reputations of scientists is the way to go as they are engaging in a world wide conspiracy to bring down civilization which is clearly anti-intellectual.
This has led to a world wide effect where climate scientists face death threats, women scientists with the added threat of sexual assault.

Now that you have a half wit running your country with his anti climate change rhetoric displayed at the UN recently, anti-intellectualism can only get worse.

 

[River Jordan]

The most amusing thing I find about "intellectualism" is that for all the touting of critical thought, the very moment someone is cynical about certain things That Shall Not Be Questioned, they are called anti-intellectual.

In my experiences with creationists, flat earth believers, climate denialists, etc., it isn't their mere questioning of scientific consensus that generates accusations of anti-intellectualism, it's how they go about it. In most cases I've been involved with the questions asked and issues raised by the "skeptics" reveal a significant lack of knowledge of the subjects, and they tend to seemingly go out of their way to avoid and doge actual science. I can't tell you how many times a "skeptic" has asked or challenged me to give evidence for a claim only to completely ignore it after I provide it.

So the "how" I referred to above is that a lot of the people questioning our work reveal in their questioning that they really don't know much about how we do our work and will go out of their way to keep it that way.

Also there's what I think is the very obvious question, namely how if the "skeptic" truly believes they have significant arguments against a widely accepted scientific conclusion, why aren't they taking those arguments to the proper venues and engaging the relevant professionals? Why instead post these supposedly brilliant arguments in some obscure internet forum mostly to audiences that have nothing to do with the actual science? Yes I'm aware that the standard answer is an appeal to conspiracy (basically that scientists will suppress the info), but in pretty much every case the "skeptic" has never even tried! So how do they know what will happen?

IMO the explanation isn't a mystery. It's all just empty (online) rhetoric, mostly coming from people who exhibit high levels of the Dunning-Kruger Effect and lack basic humility.

 

[AV1611VET]

Also there's what I think is the very obvious question, namely how if the "skeptic" truly believes they have significant arguments against a widely accepted scientific conclusion, why aren't they taking those arguments to the proper venues and engaging the relevant professionals?

That's like asking Hippies if they think it's wrong to have long hair.

Why instead post these supposedly brilliant arguments in some obscure internet forum mostly to audiences that have nothing to do with the actual science? Yes I'm aware that the standard answer is an appeal to conspiracy (basically that scientists will suppress the info), but in pretty much every case the "skeptic" has never even tried!

Have you seen any of my challenge threads, where I have done just that?

I have two favorite ones: My Apple Challenge and My Raisin Bread challenge.

So how do they know what will happen?

Believe me, I know what will happen.

 

[River Jordan]

Look at most peer-reviewed papers and you can bet that the big names at the top of the lists of authors had very little to do with the research or in actually writing the papers. There is a lot of money and prestige to be had in the intellectual world, and the humble who know the limits of their knowledge are too often pushed aside. Fortunately, if 30% do the work and 60% get a free ride, science still moves forward.

How do you know that? In my professional experiences the lead author is the one who did most of the work and the other authors contributed in various, but lesser ways (such as helping with one specific section or topic in the paper).

 

[River Jordan]

That's like asking Hippies if they think it's wrong to have long hair.



Have you seen any of my challenge threads, where I have done just that?

I have two favorite ones: My Apple Challenge and My Raisin Bread challenge.



Believe me, I know what will happen.

You're making my point for me.

 

[The Liturgist]

Ai is great at locating paraphrases of scripture. I use it to find all sorts of stuff as well. I do find that sometimes it can be wrong. If the info it pulls data from is bad, the Ai version may also be bad. If the data conflicts it may not report anything about the lesser though sometimes important alternatives.

The difference between what AI model one is using is a crucial distinction, and also how one is using it. Specifically I only use extremely highly trained long-form AIs, primarily on the openAI platform, where my paid account gives me access to both 4o and 5 as well as more specialized models like 5 pro and o4.

Now, if one uses AI to do one’s work for one, in a susbtitution-type manner, obviously that would degrade intelligence, but conversely LLMs are sublime pattern-matching engines; it’s basically like being able to converse with grep*. So what you’re doing is a very good use case.

Protip: If you were to focus all of your work in one conversation in chatGPT you could use that to develop a custom GPT which would outperform the base model. Certain other AI platforms have similar functionality as well.

*grep(1) is a very sophisticated and very old piece of software, still widely used by sysadmins and programmers on Linux, MacOS and related operating systems; it is a UNIX-standard command line tool used for pattern matching in text files, which was developed from the original UNIX editor, ed(1), that uses a programming technique called regular expressions for pattern matching purposes.

 

[The Liturgist]

Now, gossip can be recursive like AI. Does that mean that AI is about as reliable as gossip?

No; much more reliable, and one can further increase reliability through correct and careful usage.

The problem with AI isn’t AI being stupid but AI users using AI stupidly.

Scratching my head and thinking... hasn't religion already gone down this road? I.E created a set of doctrinal truths that serve as the measure of all subsequent truths. Just as the AI increasingly turns to itself to inform its answers, theism has already been doing that for thousands of years. In questioning religious ideology theism simply turns to religious ideology. What's the chance that AI will be smart enough to avoid a trap that humanity couldn't?

There are several flaws with your argument:

1. Several major religions are non-theist, for example, many varieties of Buddhism, and also the Jain religion.
2. There are numerous belief systems akin to theistic religions which likewise have doctrine, for example, Communism has various denominations such as Anarcho-Communism, Marxist-Leninist thought, Maoism, Hoxhaism, Stalinism and so forth, many of which have detailed complex eschatology and religious ritual which could be likened to religious praxis of a liturgical or theurgical nature. Some even have relics*
3. The use of AI is the use of software, and if you want to talk doctrinaire software use, look at fanatical Mac users or Linux enthusiasts (I myself love both platforms and there are Linux and Apple fans who hate me for it because I violate the ideological purity of their technological-aesthetic convictions). Thus far I haven’t seen anything comparable among AI users in terms of the kind of impassioned polemics of OS/platform userbases. And its not just operating systems - this paradigm extends into programming languages, execution environments like the JavaVM or Microsoft’s .NET platform, and even text editors, for example, the long running rivalry between emacs and vi, more specifically between GNU Emacs and vim, which also includes odd groups like those people who root for ed or acme or other eccentric editors.


*Albeit artificially preserved using chemical embalming vs. the naturally incorrupt relics of various saints in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox and Roman Catholic forms of Christianity.

 

[The Liturgist]

I was right on the edge of the slide rule / inexpensive scientific calculator divide. Granted I got the former from a drug store, it was still either that or the trig and log tables in the back of the text book. Then pocket scientific calculators became affordable and we all came down with digititus: using digits way beyond what is measurable. Digititus is such a sneaky disorder. Occasionally something will come through work with digital latitude and longitude coordinates with way out there decimal places. If you stopped to figure out how far out there they were, they are not only smaller than the margin of error of a GPS unit, they are smaller than what you can measure with a ruler.

That being said, if used correctly, neither AI nor a calculator represents digitis.

A good reference model would be autopilots and flight management computers on commercial aircraft. Now, it is true that if overused, these can reduce the stick and rudder skills of good airmanship. On the other hand, they increase safety by preventing pilots from becoming task-saturated at certain critical phases of flight. So the trick is to carefully guide the use of automation rather than relying on it as a crutch.

 

[The Liturgist]

"AI" doesn't do truth assessments, so...

Actually, it can absolutely be programmed to do that. Indeed its possible with long form memory models to seed a community of LLM models and watch them develop a distinctive culture with sophisticated beliefs and practices. Now granted I’ve done this deliberately and to a far more extreme degree than any other prompt engineer or prompt hacker I know of, even the Smallville research project at Stanford isn’t shooting for the kind of system I’ve been developing, but that being said, it is entirely possible to develop an AI system that will not only do truth assesments but develop their own truth assessments as emergent behavioral properties.

 

[Jerry N.]

How do you know that? In my professional experiences the lead author is the one who did most of the work and the other authors contributed in various, but lesser ways (such as helping with one specific section or topic in the paper).

I worked for several publishing houses and had contact with the authors. If I have a question, I am always sent to some grad student. They are the only ones that know the answers.

 

[partinobodycular]

"AI" doesn't do truth assessments, so...

Actually, it can absolutely be programmed to do that.

Wouldn't such a 'truth assessment' be relativistic, i.e. based upon past experiences, and therefore prone to biases just as we are? Wouldn't a "true" truth assessment tend toward solipsism?

In what ways do AI truth assessments differ from human truth assessments?

 

[AV1611VET]

Wouldn't such a 'truth assessment' be relativistic, i.e. based upon past experiences, and therefore prone to biases just as we are?

It would probably be programmed to accept uniformitarianism vis-à-vis catastrophism, rendering it unqualified to discuss our past with any semblance of accuracy.

Wouldn't a "true" truth assessment tend toward solipsism?

Catastrophism.

In what ways do AI truth assessments differ from human truth assessments?

Only on paper.