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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/11/25 7:43 AM, glen wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:636102f5-9b8c-499c-ba44-2cf979a020bc@gmail.com">The
Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking: Self-Reported
Reductions in Cognitive Effort and Confidence Effects From a
Survey of Knowledge Workers
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2025/01/lee_2025_ai_critical_thinking_survey.pdf">https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2025/01/lee_2025_ai_critical_thinking_survey.pdf</a>
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It really doesn't seem that different to me from numerical
analysis. It shifts the work from doing the computing to declaring
what the computing should do.
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</blockquote>
Spatial Knowledge:<br>
<blockquote>I guess it's a cheap comparison but I've watched the
impact of handheld mapping and route planning devices (i.e.
consumer GPS) and can't say it has actually significantly
harmed/changed spatial awareness... Map wonks seem to use dynamic
GPS-based mapping apps to enhance their existing experience with
paper maps printed years or even decades ago? Those with little
spatial/map awareness/interest seem to have leaned more heavily on
the tech and possible increased their dependency on the tech
without enhancing their spatial awareness/interest particularly.
<p>I know plenty of people who have *always* wanted/needed to be
topological not geometric... "just tell me how to get there" and
today they turn on "driving directions" with voice and "turn
left, turn right, etc." as they are told and as long as it works
are at least as happy as they used to be when they had a copilot
who was doing the navigation and happier than they were when
they had to try to read the instructions scribbled on their
napkin as they drove, trying to ignore the scribbled (and
rarely-to-scale-map-diagram drawn ideosynchratically by someone
who *already* knows how to get there? ).</p>
<p>If used with a little thought, both modes are enhanced (IMO) by
the digital/automated support tools. Although very few
automobiles have any paper maps in their glove boxes today... so
in that sense, something was harmed/lost?<br>
</p>
</blockquote>
Pre-Digital Information Retrieval:<br>
<blockquote>As we know from my incessant anecdote about "keeping
company" with LLMs (primarily GPT), I find the conversational mode
of "search" very compelling. But I already reformulated my
"search" as an anticipatory exercise... first with dictionaries
and encyclopedias and libraries by, for example, pulling several
books from the stacks at once, ordering them in some mode which
helps me work my way through the *imagined* or *foreshadowed* path
I am anticipating when I pull the books. I usually had a few
words queued in my head when I first opened a dictionary or
encyclopedia which became a growing/shrinking queue as I addressed
each word on the stack/queue in my head. <br>
<br>
</blockquote>
Conversational Mode of Information Retrieval/Knowledge Development:<br>
<blockquote>I don't know if I'm half as capable as Glen in
developing a good "strawman argument" but I do find that the
conversational mode of constructing my pursuit of
information/knowledge/wisdom leads me toward something like
that... deliberately asking GPT questions which are either
minimal in my assumptions or acutely specific about my
implications. What GPT offers which *most*
conversants/correspondents do not is an acutely careful ear to
listen to my explicit assumptions and an ?unbiased? ability to
take those assumptions and my questions and convolve them with
their *very elaborate* knowledge base (training) and give me what
are very convincing answers. The challenge then becomes
recognizing confirmation bias. It *is* rather easy to ask a
question in a way which telegraphs to the over-eager LLM to give
me answers which are tailored to satisfy the sentiment implied in
my question(s).<br>
</blockquote>
<p>Like all new tools, I do think we are in a phase of accommodation
and adoption, like the early days of TV when all performers and
producers could generate for some time was Radio Programs with
moving images. Or Cinema as recorded Theater. Or Hypermedia as
magazines and newspapers with hyperlinks (and <blink>
tags?). <br>
</p>
<p>I have used GPT very sparingly in "voice-conversational" mode and
have been fairly impressed with how well it works. It is patently
not the same as chatting with a friend or colleague, nor is it
like using voice I/O for the written/typed mode. As those of you
who know me in-person, my "conversational affect" in person is
somewhat different than my affect here (for better and worse).</p>
<p>The Internet made me a *more capable* but absolutely
less-frequent user of paper libraries. Mobile devices with
mapping/GPS has made me a *more capable" spatial awareness
thinker/navigator/map-reader but actually open many fewer paper
maps. In "idiom-conflation", I even find myself occasionally
wanting to pinch-zoom a map or look for the little blue dot to
find my "current" location. Or wish paper journalism had
hyperlinks in them to make it easy for me to tangent to the
implications-of or supporting-info for a given line of discussion.</p>
<p>mumble,</p>
<p> - Steve<br>
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