Comment by scrlk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by scrlk | Hacker News Reader

> The developers who thrive in this new environment won’t be those who fear or resist AI tools, but those who master them—who understand both their extraordinary potential and their very real limitations. They’ll recognise that the goal isn’t to remove humans from the equation but to enhance what humans can accomplish.

I feel like LLMs are just the next step on the Jobs analogy of "computers are bicycles for the mind" [0]. And if these tools are powerful bicycles available to everyone, what happens competitively? It reminds me of a Substack post I read recently:

> If everyone has AI, then competitively no one has AI, because that means you are what drives the differences. What happens if you and LeBron start juicing? Do you both get as strong? Can you inject your way to Steph’s jumpshot? What’s the differentiator? This answer is inescapable in any contested domain. The unconventionally gifted will always be ascendant, and any device that’s available to everyone manifests in pronounced power laws in their favor. The strong get stronger. The fast get faster. Disproportionately so. [1]

[0] https://youtu.be/ob_GX50Za6c?t=25

[1] https://thedosagemakesitso.substack.com/p/trashbags-of-facts...

Simon Willison nailed exactly this 2 years ago:

> I've been thinking about generative AI tools as "bicycles for the mind" (to borrow an old Steve Jobs line), but I think "electric bicycles for the mind" might be more appropriate.

> They can accelerate your natural abilities, you have to learn how to use them, they can give you a significant boost that some people might feel is a bit of a cheat, and they're also quite dangerous if you're not careful with them!

https://simonwillison.net/2023/Feb/13/ebikes/

https://packet.boutique/technohumanism/codex/index.html

Technology is part of humanity. Just as a hammer extends the hand, so too does the LLM extend the mind.

Or it is the car for the mind. It extends your range but you become fat and lazy by driving everywhere.

> you become fat and lazy by driving everywhere.

but you do manage to drive everywhere - a feat that wasn't possible previously (except perhapes for the select few who trained).

But as soon the car breaks down you're going nowhere.

That's a big dependency, reminds me of the people in Wall-E.

Yes, it's a new dependency. But it's not the biggest one of the modern life.

And the criteria shouldn't be just the cost of the dependency, but the benefits too! I'd say every dependency we have in the modern life is worth it - otherwise people wouldn't have chosen to have it. Like electricity, mechanised farming, etc.

People aren't so rational.

We often chose short term benfits over long term negative effects.

For instance eating too much sugar, too little sleep, destroying our own habitate by burning fossil fuels etc.

AI needs lots of money and resources ans the use case is more than once for useless stuff.

Gosh. That’s bang on. And very prescient for 2 years ago.

If you and Lebron both had mech-suits you'd be equal in strength. Actually you might find that maybe you communicate better with the machine as you've had to communicate a lot more for work and have further refined those neural patterns. So actually, I would expect those with exceptional communication skills and creativity to be the best able to take advantage of AI. In a world where functional code in any language can be spat out at 1000 tokens/s, it matters a lot more that you can communicate your vision than understanding the inscrutable byte-level architecture of ARM-64 or how to write a CUDA kernal, or how to use a static class properly.

LeBron James still knows more about how to play basketball than whoever is in the mech suit opposite him.

Mech-basketball is a different game than basketball. There would be an entirely new metagame. I just watched Magnus Carlsen get checkmated in 7 moves in magic chess, a move even a 10 year old could find ( vs GM Hansen if you want so see it ).

Another analogy:

"A good archer is going to be an amazing sharpshooter and therefore I only want to field archers (with guns) as soldiers", might be a horrible way to run a modern military.

This "the best at the old thing will be the best at the new thing too!" needs to die in a fire.

> LeBron James still knows more about how to play basketball

i would bet that there are currently lots of people who would beat LeBron in theoretical basketball, but don't have the body nor the endurance to compete.

But with a mecha-suit, the advantages of any natural born talent, and any issue with endurance or strength, etc, are diminished, leaving only mental capability as a differentiator.

That's not to say that LeBron's mental capability (in regards to basketball) is low - surely it's high. But the combination of high athletisism and mental capability is a rarity right now. Removing one of these conditions (via the mecha-suit) will then increase the pool of "high" performers imho.

> leaving only mental capability as a differentiator

I think a huge part of most sports (especially combat ones) is muscle memory. You don't have time to think between moves. So if you want to be good you'll still have to work for days and make your body learn.

And if you think muscle memory is bullshit, try to remember how driving was hard at first and nowadays you can almost sleep through your commute.

I think that’s the same with coding in a stack you really familiar with, especially if you’re fluent in your editor. Sometimes your mind is a few steps ahead of what you’re actually writing. The bulk of the work is below the focus level.

LeBron is one of the rare individuals at that intersection of high athleticism and mental capability. It's why at the age of 40, well past his athletic prime, he's still a top NBA player. He has Magnus-level chunking ability enabling prodigious memory for games, he has fast processing and court vision, being able to leverage symmetries to automatically adjust for current player orientations to predict opponent plays. It's what allows him to make passes that seem impossible--he sees windows open up based on predicted player movements, not just current positions. Like that famous Wayne Gretzky quote.

It's a super rare archetype of athleticism/size+mental that only the likes of LeBron, Jokic and Magic Johnson have occupied (not meant to be an exhaustive list).

I don't think bicycle analogy is adequate. It seems that they are more like cars. And if we follow that analogy, it suggests that the direction of the evolution will depend on whether we make our society dependent on being able to drive cars and grow fat from lack of activity or use them in a more mindful 'for purpose intended' way.

Analogies are traps for the mind.

What if LLMs are cars for the mind not bicycles?

Both I and Usain Bolt get a Prius. Who is faster at the shopping mall? What will happen to our fitness? Who will be the next Usain Bolt and would we even care?

> If everyone has AI, then competitively no one has AI, because that means you are what drives the differences.

Except everyone doesn't have AI. Only huge corporations with billion dollar data centers do. What happens when Sam Altman decides to de-prioritize you? The little toy model you downloaded from github won't cut it.

These AI tools shift a lot of power into a few Silicon Valley companies. Keep those skills sharp, you'll need them. Best case scenario, the VC money bonfire runs out of fuel before 3 companies own the entire software industry.

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