Things aren’t getting worse. It’s all in your head. All hail our glorious capitalist empire.
And skepticism about people not using their own brains will be laughed off as a failure to accept transhumanism or some shit (which is still a sci fi fantasy)
I love being gaslit into accepting increasingly predatory and invasive technology! Ai is the future!
I’m 100% on board with abandoning my weak disgusting flesh but the technology just isnt there yet
Not to be a Luddite but it’s technology, or at least the use of computers in a hyper capitalist system. Factories and engines performed labor, and humans didn’t have to expend their own limited reserves. Now, and not just with LLMs but before that, people are outsourcing their thinking.
There is no easy solution to this, no magic bullet. But virtually all tech companies have a vested interest in stealing your attention as much as possible. Only through a revolutionary and transformative way of living can we reverse course on the atrophy of brain power. Only a system where humans are treated like humans and not commodities. Education cuts, COVID, and “AI” are just accelerating the process that’s been going on my entire life.
Not all new technology is created equal, nor is progress a straight line like a video game. Remember how tech ghouls were trying to push NFTs and the Metaverse? They’re not promoting it because there is a massive demand for it, they’re pushing it because capitalism has to constantly find new things to sell to make line go up. They’re left reinventing the wheel and the doorknob despite no one asking for it. The infinite growth comes from how many suckers they can dupe into giving them money instead of a real need being met, because the needs that LLMs could be used to meet aren’t really the big massive infinite money printers that they want. It’s just rich people trying to leave other rich people holding the bag all the way down.
This technology isn’t being applied in a helpful or sustainable way. I see the potential of LLMs, but only in a highly controlled environment and definitely not in the hands of the ‘free’ market.
All very true. I should phrase it as “the current use of high tech is destroying our brains.” LLMs have helped decode genomes. Leaps and bounds have been made for accessibility. There is absolute good mixed in there, but the social environment of technology is unsustainable and harmful. And within our system, I can’t see how we can mitigate those harmful effects on education without reducing its use in the classroom.
Absolutely
Now, and not just with LLMs but before that, people are outsourcing their thinking.
I agree with your main point. This part, though, is misanthropy disguised as anticapitalism. People don’t just turn off their brains when a certain form of thought becomes obsolete. The simple calculator has obviated the need to perform manual arithmetic. Did people stop thinking or doing math? No, instead what used to be the product of mental labor became an object of a new mental labor at a higher level of abstraction.
Tell me you don’t work directly with sales and marketing ghouls without telling me you don’t work directly with sales and marketing ghouls
The breakdowns I currently have to provide for basic concepts once expected to be understood are way too damn high for teaching science post-high school. To write someone off as “old and yelling at a cloud” requires a general knowledge base and comprehension of the surroundings. Maybe I’m just jaded, but not sure much of that’s found with most high school classes these days, and it still seems to be on the decline…
The problem is, a lot of complaints mixed up with these are old man yelling at cloud. There are very real falling standards and people are suffering because of them, but these get mixed up with “this generation’s parents/children are the actual worst people because woke or bad parenting or whatever” when people are complaining about actually not-worsening issues (recently there was one about children not reaching school toilet trained, even though studies show this is not a worsening thing, and if anything has gotten better).
One is a real and extremely serious problem, one is
. We need to be careful when we say which is which.They’ll hit you with the “you’re ableist for noticing this” angle from the left and then the right will just call you some kind of slur calling you evil or subhuman for thinking things should be different.
Already are
