On AI: at an embarrassing age I learned that almost everyone hates reading.

[softwaretheron@mas.to]

@bert_hubert
Someone told me once that they voted for Margaret Thatcher because she was a strong leader.
This explains that exactly.

[goose@fosstodon.org]

@leonoverweel @bert_hubert it's sort of not wrong! A lot of intellectuals are extremely dangerous.

It's like a doctor who murders her husband. There's a good chance it will be instantly lethal, and with a minimum of fuss.

Also, think of how Einstein stimulated the Manhattan project.

[diazona@techhub.social]

@bert_hubert As someone who finds exercise mostly unpleasant, I've often suspected but never really confirmed that athletic people fundamentally don't understand what that experience is like for me. It stands to reason that the same would be true for reading and deep thinking.

Though, I gotta imagine there has to be some ignorance or outright denial of the fact that LLMs don't necessarily do what you think they're doing. (It sounds kind of like someone discovering wheelchair basketball and deciding "hey now I can play basketball" but if the wheelchairs randomly turn on their own)

[lmk@infosec.exchange]

@thomastc @bert_hubert People avoid System 2 thinking which requires attention and is metabolically costly - laziness. I'd say the US (and many other places) political situation proves a widespread lack of critical thinking.

[ulrikeheiss@eldritch.cafe]

@bert_hubert I guess it depends on how you define thinking. I was taught (but I haven't fact-checked this) that thinking requires ridiculous amounts of energy, so it makes sense to avoid it. On the other hand thinking and planning ahead would probably have helped a group of hunter-gatherers to survive. To avoid it entirely would not have been an advantage.
I was also tought that this is why we have developed routines as ways of saving energy by not thinking about repetitive tasks. This would sort of balance the opposing interests. But the price we pay for this balance, is that there is a resistance against thinking we have to overcome, before we get into the flow of it. And I believe some people find this resistance harder to overcome than others. Or they were never encouraged to overcome it.
And something I have noticed in this context: some people seem to be less curious than others. I believe curiosity helps me overcome my resistance to thinking and I'd be interested to know if there is research to back this up.

[duarte@hachyderm.io]

@bert_hubert True! Maybe it’s avoiding effort or the perception thereof, or avoiding an expected feeling of fatigue (either muscular or directed attention fatigue).

[denofearth@mas.to]

@bert_hubert
The bit about burying the lede is maybe not (only) because people don't read, but using inbox preview to sort and skip mail. So if your letter looks like:

Dear Mike,

Thanks for that report on the McCarthy file, much appreciated and timely.

On that note, can I ask you to amend appendix 1 to add the following...

Mike's Inbox preview will show the thanks. No need to bother opening, mark read and file, move on.

I've taken to putting my requirements in the first sentence at the expense of civility.

[bert_hubert@eupolicy.social]

@UlrikeHeiss thinking, oddly, does not appear to require additional calories beyond the 25W our brain consumes non-stop. And this is what makes it weird! But perhaps the costs of thinking are more subtle. There are some anecdotes of chess players burning through more energy, but this does not appear to be brain related. Also if thinking required calories I'd be thin by now!

[winfried@fosstodon.org]

@bert_hubert that's an interesting thought and would explain many conflicts and misunderstandings, it seems to have something to do with "cognitive bias"

[ketumbra@infosec.exchange]

@bert_hubert but if you don't like thinking, I would guess you're not in a job that AI can help with...?