Ask Lemmy

Yeah it’s way worse than when we used a Rolodex to remember phone numbers, kept a map book in the dash, and took 20 minutes to transfer birthdays from last years calendar to this years.

I am about as anti-AI as one can get, but this is a bit silly.

https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1446354

The invention of writing will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom.

Socrates

I memorize important numbers

I don't use GPS after the first time going to a place and remember my routes

Facebook? what... ? people actually use that?

I won't use AI..my information stays with me, in my mind when I need it. I can't rely on others, I won't rely on computers to be there when I need it and that most certainly applies to ai

With phone books, we don't memorize phone numbers any more, we rely on drawn maps to tell us where to go and calendars reminds us of birthdays. What else will we stop remembering once ~~AI~~ paper remembers everything for us?

Like, people used rely Rolodex's and calendars to remember phone numbers and birthdays, respectively. In other words, we used to write things down. When I left Facebook, I did literally go through their calendar and write down all my friends birthdays.

Navigation is a skill you have to learn. When I was an EMT, my FTO drilled the basics in to me. I can find my way to a city Ive never been, but I still use a GPS to find a specific place off the major cross streets. People used to give more advice with the destination, now they just say, "oh, come to this XXXX address place" because they assume youll be using a GPS, and the skill to describe "its off of this road" is both becoming lost, and a generational disconnect.

With the movie, people will forget how to read.

With the printing press, people will forget how to write.

With the book, people will forget how to remember.

With writing, people will forget how to talk.

“AI” as in the common LLMs that most people think of doesn’t remember anything new for us and doesn’t invent anything new.

The best it can offer is a mathematical chance to make an inference that we might not have already, based on whatever it was trained on. It’s a dice roll on insight, and the house always wins.

Who still uses Facebook?

I remember the new emergency number. It's 01189998819991197253

I memorize the phone numbers of my family, but why would anyone memorize the phone numbers of the rest of their contacts? Nobody did that before we got address books in our phones. That's literally why phone books existed.

So, I'm going to start this on two things I've seen degrade in people who grew up with computers as a primary source of information versus a secondary source.

First, I've seen the ability to look through a document degrade over time as younger people have gotten used to Ctrl+F. The ability to manually look up and scan through a document has degraded. Also, I've seen people will then hyperfocus on the paragraph at the detriment of skimming the page.

Second, the ability to read not perfectly legible text has degraded as well. If the document is a poor scan or bad print handwriting, younger people have to practice the skill of reading it which was usually assumed to be had.

So, where do I think this will go in the future with AI?

First, I'm seeing AI used a lot to summarize and those results are being trusted. I see a future where younger people won't have that ability to process and summarize data because they will be out of practice.

Second, I see the ability to write is going to degrade since people will be out of practice as people rely on AI to write for themselves. That lack of practice is going to have major impacts to critical thinking skills.

The faces of our fathers.

I know about 4 phone numbers by memory:

1. My childhood home phone
2. My childhood best friend’s home phone
3. My cell phone
4. My ex-wife’s cell phone

Two of those numbers no longer work, so if I ever go to jail there is only one person I can call. 😬

I never memorized those. We had a of the most common phone numbers on the wall next to the phone. Birthdays I didn't need to remember either because the date was in the invitation card.

Navigation is something I'm way worse than my dad for example, I'll give you that. I'll rely on GPS even when I know how to get to my destination because I always tend to drive the same routes and sometimes there is a much shorter one that I didn't even think of.

Good idea to recognize, but bad examples.

The issue isn't even using devices to replace cognitive functions. That's anprim shit, I'm not gonna do 5 digit numbers on my head, imma use a calculator, especially if it's something important or there are stakes to getting it wrong.

The issue more than anything is agency.

Who's we?

I still remember the fucking IP address of the main local (member of a three way cluster) data server for a bank that folded over 15 years ago.

2102231063 (used to be area code 512) was the back/kitchen phone of the firehouse my dad worked at. He retired in '93 and died in 2011.

And I almost never need directions to a place I've been once.

I don't forget faces but fuck do I forget names even when I repeat them or use other memory techniques.

I might be neurologically a little divergent, but I don't know, and make no assumptions.

Why we should kill each other

LLMc can't remember anything. It's all an illusion based on systems that have existed for decades.

We didn't stop remembering phone numbers because our phones remembers them for us, we stopped remembering numbers because we stopped dialing them, back then there was this joke about not knowing your own number, why should I know my own number? I never call myself, and when I do I always get a busy signal.
We don't even get to see the numbers, we have to make an extra effort to memorise numbers when we used to just know them after dialing them every day.

With GPS is something similar, we have trouble remembering how to get from point A to point B because GPS substituted landmarks. We turn right when the GPS says so, so we stopped looking for the gas station, the bus stop or the road sign. Again, we need to make an extra effort to pay attention to our surroundings to know when to turn right next time we come without a GPS when before that was just how you learned to get to places.
At least for me this is very obvious in video games, every time I deactivate the minimap I don't know how to get anywhere and I start to notice how rich some of the environments are when I stop having one eye fixed in the corner following the yellow line.

So with AI I don't know, probably won't be what it does for us but what we stop doing because of that.

Stored phone numbers and GPS sre reliable though. I never remembered most numbers or birthdays anyway due to ADHD, so those being easily accessible was a benefit.

GPS directions also include construction and more accurate time estimates. I never learned alternate routes because remembering the ones I knew was enough effort and I still learn those. Going to new cities is way easier now!

That’s entirely up to you. Do you not have phone numbers for your main people memorized? I also have my library card memorized. This level of memory work isn’t rocket scientist level functioning, it’s a choice.

Do you really want to be in a hospital, after a car accident, with no phone (destroyed/lost in crash), and have no idea how to call your parent, spouse, or child? This occurs more often than you’d think.

I memorized my friend's phone number. It's because she's a lawyer, and that seems like a good number to have memorized.

I remember a few people's phone numbers in case I need to ring them on someone else's phone.

Calendars existed before computers.

I continue to remember phone numbers and birthdays. No Google or Facebook for me and I'm waiting for the AI bubble to pop.

Edit: GPS, I thought you meant Google play services. I do use an offline map on my phone if I'm going to an unfamiliar area but I have no problem reading a map.