Hailey1d ago

There's a particular strawman response to the concerns that LLMs damage literacy, impair learning, etc that goes like "well people said the same thing about the calculator!" "Socrates said writing would make people dumb!" and the reason it's a shit take is it pretends that pedagogy just doesn't exist. We _do_ study the effect of various technologies and methods used in teaching. We _know_ that certain methods of teaching reading are ineffective and damaging, three-cueing for example.

It is in fact anti-science to believe that all concerns about new technologies and methods being damaging are automatically invalid, especially in the face of mounting evidence supporting those concerns.

Show threadJackson Mostoller
@hailey They also completely discount the *nature* of the technologies. How, exactly, is a system that outputs a bunch of intentionally human-sounding text on-demand remotely similar to writing symbols down to record information? I’d argue that, of any familiar technology, LLMs are probably most similar to algorithmic social media—a vast and faceless maelstrom of hyper-available information controlled by unseen powers that’s wired directly into our natural social proclivities. And we all agree algorithmic social media is an unmitigated benefit to society…right?
I would love to know how “ostensible digital maven” is enough like a writing desk to handwave away all criticism.
Apr 5 at 3:10amWeb