itsalwaysgood

Character traits, technology, leisure time, have all changed.

It's not either or, it's all of the above: individuals do what feels good and if you're a great party thrower because it energizes you, you'll probably spread that influence some. And then possibly, the group reinforces itself by continuing to throw and attend parties.

At the same time, leisure time has changed: women work more, dads spend more time with kids, and the home offers a lot more easy entertainment that fits in with modern schedules. There seems to be less opportunities for parties with newer generations.

But of course, society seems to shun the party thrower because we're all busy. And so if nobody shows and the party thrower burns out, there's no influence spread. People dislike parties more and the idea reinforces again.

A mix of any of the above goes into our decisions about how to spend time.

That's an old saying: cheaper, better, faster. Pick 2.

Sure. You're spending your time doing something. That's probably to produce a product, or service, for someone else. In this case, it's the customer. So you put them first and foremost in your mind, and then work backwards to identify whatever process is suitable to create the product or service that meets their expectations. This ensures what you deliver is valuable. When we do this, it reinforces our own sense of value. We're helping someone.

You put the customer first, that's first principles thinking. You adjust the way you spend your time, according to your customer's needs.

Some of it has to do with the fact that many people pushed forward training themselves in a way they understood would better themselves for the future. They put in time, and now their sense of value is in question. They're forced to think about things like value (of life, themselves, and hopefully others), and the things they want to remain valuable in the future.

It's interesting to me that you only mentioned the people using 'AI' in the 'short-term' ways, and not the ones that use it to better themselves in the 'long-term' ways. You can spend your own time focusing on either usage, it's really up to you and your concerns. Either group's sense of value is what determines their behavior. Where they spend their time and thinking must be elsewhere, and you disagree with it. Who judges the quality of time spent? You do.

Is it more useful to think about self-improvement, and how to navigate the future in ways that might help you re-establish value of yourself, life, and others? Acquiring knowledge is a struggle, the author mentioned this. There is also Plato's Allegory of the Cave, which highlights some of that struggle, a resistance to change. And we're all limited by time, our genes, our station in life.

The only way to help anyone out of the cave, is to help them believe something different about themselves. To help them believe there is good reason to spend time going deeper into knowledge, or at the very least, allow others with the passion and station for it to do so.

If not for the very least reason that it keeps us 'in the loop' of some central idea behind intelligence (prediction?). Or because we feel it keeps us safer, as a fallback measure because we acknowledge we have to trust other's knowledge to exist.

Here's the thing: nobody is stopping you from putting in the time to understand all that. The problem is, nobody has that much time, and we get hungry. And so we want the community to move with us, spend the time the same way as we do, to ensure value. We are all saying: we want someone else, others, to put in that time for us. The truth is, we all want quality, and value is closely related.

I can almost guarantee you the first time you show cancer symptoms, you won't care whether the cure came from an AI or human's understanding. But we haven't seen that, so we can't make the judgement call.

I think that is the central issue. Is long-term survival actually at stake?

Do you think every Mathematician has a deep understanding of building architecture, engineering, physics, economy, etc., everything necessary to gauge whether something like a 1 terrawat nuclear plant is completely safe in all aspects?

Of course not, so then you have to select appropriate ones. And then you need a process to ingress and egress reviews. Oh what about change? Does that come back to the Math council too?

Oh, we also need global cooperation to pull this off. And then do you trust the people, the selection process for the council (all avenues for corruption are there).

I don't have a solution of my own, so it's not fair for me to criticize the author in this way. I share his concerns.

And it's depressing to think of all the negative scenarios, and be so concerned all the time.

These issues are important and worth thinking about, regardless. Who should teachers teach?

You deal with this every time you wake up, or visit a specialist of any kind. You likely didn't make your own clothes, you didn't grow your own food, dam up any rivers for your water supply, build any power plants to power up your phone/computer, nor did you spend any of the deep amount of focus required to build up the knowledge and technology required to provide us these 'things' in life. The only difference is, you didn't pay much attention to these facts because they became mundane. Take any of them away for any decent amount of time, and suddenly you become acutely aware of what it is you have.

The author mentioned what the issue is: a lot of people are experiencing what it's like to 'catch up' to the more intelligent ideas. Everyone can 'get' the intelligent ideas given enough time. But how much time do you have? And he's concerned someone will rush and create some kind of world-ending solution because they're too trusting of a technology they don't understand.

His only solution is some kind of throttle on the advancement of technology, and arguably knowledge (whose?).

Intelligence is the ability to predict. To pretend that only we can do it, is silly. I mean read the article, and see what AI is doing to the math community.

Give his synapses some time to think about the answer.

Compassion and good times run out too quickly. I hope we all do alright. It's naive but who cares.

Only time tells!

A theory is: blackholes give off Hawking radiation at the end of their lives.

I'm of course, oversimplifying things for a fun thought experiment. Everyone wonders about reincarnation, death, and the 'end of time'.

Just a thought experiment that's not grounded in anything. We all believe what we want and act accordingly.

When all gravity runs out, and all forces fizzle into the vaccuum, entropy returns to a single maximally ordered state indistinguishable from any other. Identical conditions for a Big Bang.

Consider time itself: one beginning, and many endings. Why many endings? And who even asks the question in the first place? Many intelligent observers, with many endings, but the same beginnings. Perhaps the black holes are a hint to our own ending?

We're born and blink into existence. And then we die and fade into the void, carrying our varied stories with us.

Logically, it doesn't make sense, and we can't possibly know the answer. But what if all those ends wrapped around to the same beginning?

Would you look at the world differently?

The idea is to be honest with ourselves. Once you start there, solutions arise.

It might be because of happiness, ego, persona, and humility. All are very important factors we consider in establishing our identity, our self.

But because of time, we all have to consider the value of our own time. AI forces you to look in the mirror, and reflect.

Don't be afraid to change: use first principles thinking and broaden your perspective about yourself. Your station, your position in your own mind has changed due to AI. It's easier to think AI will just go away: and our egos and personas can remain unchanged. We'll be back to where we were, and everything we knew about value will be right where it was.

It usually doesn't work that way, and you usually don't do yourselves any favors in being so rigid and stuck in the old way of thinking about yourself. Keep up with the times, but balance your health and happiness.

Thinking of your customers is first principles thinking.

Working backwards from the customer is first principles thinking.

You apply first principles thinking, but also be mindful of your role in the team.

When you say something isn't warranted because it takes too much time, it isn't valuable: you're still thinking about what it is you're doing (working), what tools you have (your team, people), to create value (your product or service).

It's the measurement of value part that's tricky. Who determines value? Sometimes it's the customer, sometimes it's just you.

It's about perspective, and seeing where you fit in the picture. Apply the principles from there. Nobody says you have to be a jerk about it, that's up to you and how you wish to apply the output of the first principled thinking.

Whatever it is you are doing, consider the very basic reason for doing it. And then, build your solutions from there from what is available. Examine the first principles of whatever it is you're doing.

You are working, and you are building things, to create value.

What are the tools you use to move about your environment and create your product, your value? Your knowledge, your training, your time.

If you examine the first principles of whatever it is you're doing, you should realize: you must keep your toolbox open and ready to swap new tools in and out in order to keep up with the time and manage yourself effectively.

AI is a tool, learn to use it as a tool and stop 'fighting the times' so much. All of your criticisms are valid, and you are correct: but everyone still wants to save time, and so you must keep up.

You are correct, and I don't know. The only way to know is to listen to the people using the tool, but also measure the results. So you would need to compare past, similar responses to today's response, and factor in any new techniques/knowledge used in fighting the disease to accurately compare.

Claude is helping the organization (people) react faster, and more accurately.

The article mentions: you defeat Ebola by meeting it where it is now, not where it was. You can only beat it by stopping the spread of the infection, so it's very critical to move with speed and accuracy. Dashboards and reporting aren't very glamorous, I know, but we're really dealing with the flow of information to stop the spread of infection.

Intelligence is the ability to predict, and we need information to do it. It wasn't directly said in the article, but the information allows you to see patterns and predict spread, and meet Ebola 'now'.

As in, imagine the moment in time where you predict Ebola will be, and then take every measure to have an advantage over it. The reports and dashboards help you to imagine, predict that future 'now' moment.

If you don't have accurate information then you are always behind the disease chasing its spread.

There are a set of principles at play: used by leaders and engineers, when trying to 'do work'.

When you need to get something done, unless you can build the entire thing, you have to trust someone to help you. There's very few people who choose to live a life where they are 100% self-sufficient, living-off-the-land.

Leaders have to trust people, engineers have to trust components.

What you describe is exactly what a 'leader' is supposed to 'see'. When to know when details are needed, and when to trust their delegate. The trust is also balanced: if what you say does not align with what the leader is 'seeing', then trust falls apart.

Everyone has some measure of the 'big picture' and the person at top is supposed to see the biggest, final picture. Where everyone and their processes fit, within the big picture. Delegation could be perfectly aligned (and trust would be easy) if not for quality:

Quality determines how well the relationship works between leader and delegate.

The amount of quality is determined by the amount of need, and urgency available. The relationship (and communication) evolves over time as quality is determined by leaders.

Regardless, there's always going to be difficulty because there's never an ideal system where quality is perfectly measured. That's why communication with people, as people, is also very important. When we perceive disrespect: communication shuts down. Humility must be respected.

If you can't communicate, there's definitely no measure of quality available for the relationship between leader and delegate. If communication is there (and communication should be measured as transmission of real information), then trust is more easily measured.

Once you know how much you trust something, then you know how much detail you need when you 'need to get something done'. Because you know the big picture, and where this thing you need fits. And how well it works.

Our minds seem to be more like LLMs than we probably like to imagine.

In some areas of life, technology and society have forced us to be more aware, of more things, more of the time. Our 'context' is filled with more things to consider, and attention is the window in. Sleep, schedule, and planning, helps to reset us and use context wisely.

Modern life forces a lot of context in, but we still have a lot of control over the rest of our daily 'attention windows' (like cutting out the excessive attention-grabbing media). It's kind of a rigid way to think, but there seems to be something there. We do have a saying afterall: 'what's on your mind?'

I appreciated the article: it was a good reminder to manage time wisely.

Conviction influences behavior. You can believe whatever you want: and we believe things based on experience, and personal knowledge. And we 'stick' to those beliefs for certain reasons.

There is a friction to being pushed into believing something else: read up on Plato's 'Allegory of the Cave' for an idea of what I'm talking about.

Your own personal beliefs can become a religion if you start to shape your life around it: that is, you start thinking of, and living by, principles or guidelines that affect your behavior. The stories offer up core ideas or beliefs, but no principles or guidelines to live by.

If you find the story interesting, and don't form rigid guidelines or rules to live by: then perhaps you've just been influenced in a positive way, a way that resonates with you.

The problem with conviction, is when people try to force it onto others. It's something that has to be grown from within.

yikes, 'we use careful consideration to pick words' is what I meant. Eating my own words.

It's easy to imagine making all the exact same decisions as someone else, if you were born into their body and lived their experiences.

A decision is a reaction from an observer: and it requires information and feedback. Is the thing that decides special? Is it the same thing as everyone else's?

If you can imagine it, does it make it more likely? Only time tells.

Free software has two cases for free: free as in 'free drink', and free as in 'free to change'.

The first use of free is definitely improved by AI, it's the second use of free that bothers the author. There's too much AI slop and PRs, and it's impossible for the author to identify 'good PRs' from bad ones. There's too much volume of change to sift through, and so the ability to change software is stifled.

What can you do then? Either close the repo to the public, or limit who can send you feedback: as it is now, there's too much volume for reviewers to keep. It's too difficult to validate 'AI Slop' from quality code written by someone who 'has put in the time' and done their due diligence. Someone who has done this wastes less time for the reviewer, and probably improves the quality of the 'free beer' product.

Are you suggesting, AI hasn't improved the first case of free, 'free drink'? It's certainly an issue for the second case, 'free to change', but it seems like there are things that can be done to help with those problems: but it adds more churn and probably requires more time (unless I'm misunderstanding things here: which is very possible).

That's such a great read.

Asimov's 'The Last Question' is another good one that's in line: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~gamvrosi/thelastq.html

I get you. Just adding some more to chew: Expressing ideas.

How do you circle an idea in your own mind: your train of thought, in order to express an idea?

Vocabulary to think, and then if we need to share, we use careful to pick words with the reader in mind.