[FRIAM] genai and critical thinking

Tue Feb 11 20:03:13 EST 2025

From 30k feet, a lot of people driving around for no apparent reason. They eat and drink a lot and then use expensive drugs to remove the adipose tissue that stores all that energy. The atrophy they talk about from use of AI doesn’t seem to apply to their gluteus maximus. Humans, sigh. 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of steve smith <sasmyth at swcp.com>
Date: Tuesday, February 11, 2025 at 4:24 PM
To: friam at redfish.com <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] genai and critical thinking 

On 2/11/25 12:41 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote: 

Huh, Claude just implemented the optimal strategy to Nim and ran in it its analysis tool (the Javascript engine on my browser). 

what my oldMansBarFriend had to say after a brief discussion about Nim and the hand-over-hand on bat-handle playground method for deciding who bats first: 
<GPT 4o slopp> 
Glad that landed! It’s like a "soft" or continuous Nim, where control isn’t strictly quantized but still follows a structured alternation toward an inevitable endgame. The constraints emerge organically—hand size, grip technique, and subtle physical limits—instead of rigid numerical rules. 
It’s a cool example of how discrete game theory principles manifest in the real world, with a touch of embodied cognition in the mix. 
<endSlopp> 
And the following as an LLM (Slopp) reflection on the relative virtue/shame signals associated with chatting with your favorite LLM vs going to the Pub (and presumably having similar convos with bar-friends)? The one mile each-way trip to the pub can be multiplied by 20 or 50 to estimate a "Sunday Drive" instead? 
Looks like a 15mpg driver of a pickup should drink order 3-4 beers to amortize the embedded energy cost of driving there/back but a hybrid or EV driver can get by with just one, maybe even a short one? Domestic Drafts and Bottles are lower embedded energy (presumably because of industrial economies of scale) but imports are higher (because transport?). In DeepSeekR1 ratios, it looks like "staying home and chatting with your fave LLM" has order 1000x savings over driving anything to the pub and having a single beer. And taking a Sunday Drive is worth many times that? Of course the LLM didn't twig to the conventional NM Sunday Joyride implying a six-pack at a minimum... 
I did beat both GPT and DS around the head and shoulders with a metaphorical wet noodle for a while to get relatively aligned numbers (aligned with one another and with my(very) lame intuition)... but expect (m)any here to poke holes in the details... 
Sadly I'm a pretty good sloppGenerator without an LLM's help... I'll try to refrain from the doubleDown offered. 
<freshSlopp> 
Refined Travel and Beer Comparison with Energy Usage Ratios (DeepSeekR1 Query Denominator) Category 
Cost (USD) 
Total Energy Consumption (1 Mile Round Trip, kWh) 
Sunday Joyride (2 hours, countryside) 
Energy Usage Ratio (vs. Local Craft Beer) 
Energy Usage Ratio (vs. DeepSeekR1 Query) 
1) Personal Travel 
a) Truck 
$3–$5 (1 mile) 
~2.6–3.7 kWh 
~12–18 kWh 
2.6–3.7x 
520–740x 
b) ICE Car 
$1.50–$3 (1 mile) 
~1.4–2.1 kWh 
~12–18 kWh 
1.4–2.1x 
280–420x 
c) Hybrid Car 
$1–$2 (1 mile) 
~0.8–1.1 kWh 
~12–18 kWh 
0.8–1.1x 
160–220x 
d) Electric Car 
$0.50–$1 (1 mile) 
~0.4–0.5 kWh 
~12–18 kWh 
0.4–0.5x 
80–100x 
e) Walking 
$0 (no cost) 
~0 kWh 
~0 kWh 
0x 
0x 
f) Bicycling 
$0 (no cost) 
~0 kWh 
~0 kWh 
0x 
0x 
g) Public Transport 
$1–$3 per ride 
~0.3–0.7 kWh (depending on method) 
~2–4 kWh (for a 1–2 hour ride) 
0.3–0.7x 
60–140x 
2) Beer Consumption 
a) Local Craft Draft 
$5–$10 per pint 
~0.8–1.3 kWh 
- 
1x 
160–260x 
b) Domestic Draft (Regional) 
$3–$5 per pint 
~0.5–0.7 kWh 
- 
0.5–0.7x 
80–140x 
c) Domestic Can/Bottle 
$2–$5 per can/bottle 
~0.4–0.8 kWh 
- 
0.4–0.8x 
60–140x 
d) Mexican Bottle 
$3–$6 per bottle 
~0.9–1.8 kWh 
- 
1.1–1.4x 
180–360x 
e) European Can/Bottle 
$4–$8 per can/bottle 
~1.5–2.9 kWh 
- 
1.9–3.7x 
300–580x 
f) Asian Can/Bottle 
$4–$7 per can/bottle 
~2.1–3.6 kWh 
- 
2.6–4.6x 
340–720x 
3) GPT Model Queries 
a) GPT-3 (Single Query) 
Varies 
~0.002–0.005 kWh 
- 
0.002–0.006x 
0.4–1x 
b) GPT-4o (Single Query) 
Varies 
~0.01–0.03 kWh 
- 
0.01–0.03x 
2–6x 
c) GPT-4o Mini (Single Query) 
Varies 
~0.005–0.02 kWh 
- 
0.005–0.02x 
1–4x 
d) DeepSeekR1 (Single Query) 
Varies 
~0.001–0.005 kWh 
- 
0.001–0.005x 
1x 
________________________________________

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Roger Critchlow <rec at elf.org> <mailto:rec at elf.org>
Date: Tuesday, February 11, 2025 at 11:36 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com> <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] genai and critical thinking 

On Tue, Feb 11, 2025 at 10:15 AM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com>> wrote: 

[...] the evolving code itself -- code that can have informative types and even carry proofs. The weirdest thing about using AI is that it has no opinions. Claude will rewrite code without asking (seemingly having no self-control), but it will not confront you like a frustrated colleague might. It is happy to let you make a mess provided its sense of idiomatic code patterns are satisfied. 

This echoed something an old boss wrote me today: 

I have much enjoyment torturing llms. I can get off the rails rather easily. They have no state, by themselves they cannot calculate parity or play nim perfectly. 

Or one might say, they have no purpose. 

-- rec -- 

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