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This insight was all the more remarkable given that Menabrea saw the Analytical Engine primarily as a tool for automating “long and arid computation,” which would free up the intellectual capacities of brilliant scientists for more advanced thinking.

It's funny how enduring this trope about automation is. The same thing is said now of LLMs.

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Well, isn't the main point of computers as tools (as opposed to consumption devices) the automating of “long and arid computation"?

I wasn't saying it's bad or untrue necessarily.

Just funny how the same thing is said while the goalposts keep moving, buttressed by this vague, unspecified notion of "the real creative work" or "the things only humans are good it".

And with current LLMs, and the spectre of even greater automated intelligence, our sphere of unique ability shrinks.

> more advanced thinking

does not imply

> vague, unspecified notion of "the real creative work" or "the things only humans are good it".

It's just true that increasingly advanced tools enable increasingly advanced work.

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