Bad at counting is not the same as bad at math. People bad at math I’d rather have use their hands to count.
People with bad handwriting are usually even more challenged to type with bullshit modern keyboards. I’m one such (I like my handwriting when I have time and mood, but that’s not the usual situation).
OK, I get your point, just these analogies I gave are good for LLMs. I’ve yet to meet a person who’d really use them with good results. Except for me using porn chatbots.
stickly@lemmy.world 1 day ago
This isn’t quite the same thing. If we were talking a tool like augmented audio to text I’d agree. I’d probably even agree if it was an AI-proofreader style model where you feed it what you have to make sure it’s generally comprehensible.
Writing as a skill is about solidifying and conveying thoughts so they can be understood. The fact that it turns into text is kind of irrelevant. Hand waving that process is just rubber stamping something you kinda-sorta started the process of maybe thinking about.
jrs100000@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’m not really sure what you mean. They are not perfect, and in fact it will usually reduce the quality of output for a skilled writer, but half of the adults in the US cant read and write at a sixth grade level, and LLMs are greatly improving their ability to solidify and convey their thoughts in a more understandable way.
stickly@lemmy.world 1 day ago
LLMs work by extrapolation, they can’t output any better than the context you give them. They’re used in completely inappropriate situations because they’re dead easy and give very digestible content.
Your brain is the only thing in the universe that knows the context of what you’re writing and why. At a sixth grade level, you could technically describe almost anything but it would be clunky and hard to read. But you don’t need an LLM to fix that.
We’ve had tools for years that help with the technical details of writing (basic grammar, punctuation, and spelling). There are also already tools to help with phrasing and specifying a concept (“hey Google, define [X]” or “what’s the word for when…”).
This is more time consuming than an LLM, but guarantees that what you write is exactly what you intend to communicate. As a bonus, your reading comprehension gets better. You might remember that definition of [X] when you read it.
If you have access to those tools but can’t/won’t them then you’ll never be able to effectively write. There’s no magic substitute for literacy.
jrs100000@lemmy.world 1 day ago
An AI can produce content that is higher quality than the prompts they are given, particularly for formulaic tasks. I do agree that it would be nice if everyone were more educated, but a large portion of the population will never get there. If simply denying them AI was going to result in a blossoming of self education it would have already happened by now.
echodot@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Because they’re not actually using the AI that way, to support them in their writing endeavors, they’re just having the AI do the writing task for them.
jrs100000@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I dont really think its fair to expect the barely literate to have writing endeavours. They are just trying to communicate without embarrassing themselves.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Unfortunately not the case with calculators. Lots of triple font learn thr math they ask a machine to do for them