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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • I recently read that LLMs are effective for improving learning outcomes. When I read one of the meta studies, however, it seemed that many of the benefits were indirect: LLMs improved accessibility by allowing teachers to quickly tailor lessons to individual students, for example. It also seems that some students ask questions more freely and without embarrassment when chatting with an LLM, which can improve learning for those students - and this aligns with what you mention in your post. I personally have withheld follow-up questions in lectures because I didn’t want to look foolish or reveal my imperfect understanding of the topic, so I can see how an LLM could help me that way.

    What the studies did not (yet) examine was whether the speed and ease of learning with LLMs were somehow detrimental to, say, retention. Sure, I can save time studying for an exam/technical interview with an LLM, but will I remember what I learned in 6 months? For some learning tasks, the long struggle is essential to a good understanding and retention (for example, writing your own code implementation of an algorithm vs. reading someone else’s). Will my reliance on AI somehow damage my ability to learn in some circumstances? I think that LLMs might be like powered exoskeletons for the mind - the operator slowly wastes away from lack of exercise.

    It seems like a paradox, but learning “more, faster” might be worse in the long run.






  • A lot of the bad stuff that happens on the internet is directly related to perceived anonymity. If you want to bully, harass, make bigoted statements, disseminate propaganda, or shill for a corporation, it’s better to be anonymous. If a country gives its citizens the right to free speech and reasonable protections for privacy, a non-anonymous internet is better. Besides, anonymity on the internet is an illusion for about 99% of internet users. All of the big social media companies know who you are - their whole business depends on the data they collect on you, and that data is worth much less if it can’t be associated with an individual. They also have heavy incentives to share that information with the government. Try making an ‘anonymous’ threat against your country’s leader and see if any law-enforcement types decide to visit you.


  • Musk has now surpassed Carnegie. You are right about Mansa Musa (for now), but the gap is closing. According to google today, Musk is at $334B, Carnegie peaked at a modest $309B, and Mansa Musa had about $400B, though there are quibbles about personal wealth vs. kingdom’s treasury. If you want to compare Musk and Musa, I think you could reasonably add the GDP of the US to Musk’s fortune, since he is one of the puppeteers behind Trump. All figures adjusted for inflation, by the way.