the solution might be cancelling my AI subscription
[...] this technology is horrific for attention. It's a thermonuclear ADHD amplifier and I have seen the same effect in every single one of my adult friends. Folk running 3 screens simultaneously working on totally unrelated "projects" they have little hope of maintaining, and such little commitment to the outcome that the time is obviously wasted.
Worth a read, whatever your opinion on LLMs.
like this
cheese_greater
in reply to unpossum • • •I think if AI creates negative effects you shouldn't use it. I find it quite useful altho I have to be very careful and often cite its sources or explain how it came to a response because I dont trust it much more than a code writing tool and advanced search assistant/summarizee
I know someone's gonna swoop in a say it cant think/reason/ideate it only matches patterns but I disagree, thats probably part of it but I have gotten many excellent and reliable responses and answers to questions far faster in so using it so I have to brush over those complaints
geekwithsoul
in reply to cheese_greater • • •When you say you have it cite its sources, do you actually read the source? Because I've noticed models continually cite sources that don't support what it's saying.
And it most definitely cannot think/reason/ideate - full stop.
cheese_greater
in reply to geekwithsoul • • •If not in letter then in spirit
astronaut_sloth
in reply to cheese_greater • • •Please read the citations. I've found Claude (and a slightly lesser extend GPT) to be right more often than not, but the leading LLMs do get things wrong with enough frequency that it's worth checking.
Also, to be clear, I'm not fervently anti-LLM, but I do know how it works (as much as anyone who has read the academic literature). "Thinking" is at best a misnomer and at worst a marketing term. It's just an ouroboros; the LLM more-or-less feeds its output back into itself to "check" it and "think." It works surprisingly well, but it's not actual thinking.
👍Maximum Derek👍
in reply to cheese_greater • • •Just so you know, an LLM isn't capable of actually citing its sources properly, that's not how vector engines work. When you ask it to do so, one (or more thread) spits out what ever the algebra says is the best answer, then another thread tries to best fit that output to some article in its database. If the first thread was fully committing plagiarism, then the link is accurate. If it "reasoned" anything then it may not be.
cheese_greater
in reply to 👍Maximum Derek👍 • • •Sorry, i meant
Prox
in reply to unpossum • • •friend_of_satan
in reply to unpossum • • •That's it. He doesn't need them. But in order to maintain them, he'll use up even more of his time, and probably spend a lot more on AI to do the maintenance for him. In the end, what is the cost, and what is he getting out of it?
I think for a lot of people, AI is like so many addictive video games. They take our attention and make us feel like we're getting something out of the interaction. Each prompt is like doing a run in Sling Kong or Jetpack Joyride. Didn't go well? Try again. And in the end we've wasted a lot of time on something that has little to no value, that nobody else is going to use, and the net result is a lot of wasted time with very little to show for it. We have a high score, we have some collectibles, and we're no better off than we were when we started.
I think one answer to this is more focus on the problem, and less velocity. Velocity is not helpful if you're not pointed in the right direction, and even if you are pointed in the
... Show more...That's it. He doesn't need them. But in order to maintain them, he'll use up even more of his time, and probably spend a lot more on AI to do the maintenance for him. In the end, what is the cost, and what is he getting out of it?
I think for a lot of people, AI is like so many addictive video games. They take our attention and make us feel like we're getting something out of the interaction. Each prompt is like doing a run in Sling Kong or Jetpack Joyride. Didn't go well? Try again. And in the end we've wasted a lot of time on something that has little to no value, that nobody else is going to use, and the net result is a lot of wasted time with very little to show for it. We have a high score, we have some collectibles, and we're no better off than we were when we started.
I think one answer to this is more focus on the problem, and less velocity. Velocity is not helpful if you're not pointed in the right direction, and even if you are pointed in the right direction it's not useful if you overshoot your destination.
rah
in reply to friend_of_satan • • •Fun has value. Joy has value. Pleasure has value. Indeed, one could even argue that they're the only things that do have value.
Franconian_Nomad
in reply to unpossum • • •wltr
in reply to unpossum • • •I found the post to be useless. As a cherry on top, empty blog. I wonder who are the people who have nothing to say, then they post like one silly piece of word salad, then they don’t post for years again. I’d prefer reading someone who actually posts regularly, and is able toto communicate their mind clearly.
Here … I mean, why did you start so many projects, and why did you abandoned them? I too have an ADHD, like many others these days, I believe. Yet, for me, a GPT allows make progress when I’m stuck and don’t know where to start to continue working on my abandoned project. The massive improvement to me is the ability to communicate. To have my mind written, the problem clearly formulated. I have never paid for any subscription and I would never pay them. It would be less convenient when this shit won’t be given for free to folks like me. By that point, I expect I’d just run some less powerful local model. The value I get is from the ability to communicate and have feedback, sometimes (oftentimes) on topic. Yes, it’s slop.
... Show more...I found the post to be useless. As a cherry on top, empty blog. I wonder who are the people who have nothing to say, then they post like one silly piece of word salad, then they don’t post for years again. I’d prefer reading someone who actually posts regularly, and is able toto communicate their mind clearly.
Here … I mean, why did you start so many projects, and why did you abandoned them? I too have an ADHD, like many others these days, I believe. Yet, for me, a GPT allows make progress when I’m stuck and don’t know where to start to continue working on my abandoned project. The massive improvement to me is the ability to communicate. To have my mind written, the problem clearly formulated. I have never paid for any subscription and I would never pay them. It would be less convenient when this shit won’t be given for free to folks like me. By that point, I expect I’d just run some less powerful local model. The value I get is from the ability to communicate and have feedback, sometimes (oftentimes) on topic. Yes, it’s slop. The longer the chat, the sloppier it is. But I usually have up to 10 messages conversations, and I use it only in my browser, for like an hour or two a day, tops. Most times, it’s much less than that. About 4 hours a week, summarised.
I usually hit the free limit with Claude and that’s where I stop. I almost never hit that limit with ChatGPT for some reason. Weirdly, Gemini was absolutely useless to me. I tried it thrice and never opened it again. I have no use for it.
I am not that good to juggle gazillion of projects and languages too. So I don’t. I work on one project, sometimes two or three, but they are highly related, they are almost the same, or solve the same thing from different angels.
I’d love to discuss it, but this particular piece has zero value. To me, there’s not much to discuss.
And, it’s irrelevant to my ADHD. Perhaps because I actually do something with it, and I have no Instagram, Facebook et al. I don’t doom scroll, so the dopamine is here only when I’m able to write some tiny helpful script with one prompt. When things go into some complex work, a GPT always produces incredible useless shit. So, I’ve learned there’s no point in using it that way. So, I use it with very small tasks only.
There screens simultaneously, I can only laugh at these delusional folks who believe they’re being efficient.
partial_accumen
in reply to unpossum • • •I'm confused on one main point from the author. Are these created projects for work or just personal? This answer changes the dynamic of the entire article.
If they were personal projects, then there's nothing wrong. They were useful for a moment, or were fun to build, and if they've exceeded their usefulness, get rid of them. We do this all the time with hobbies, so why would it be a sin with personal code? Nobody spends an hour finishing a crossword puzzle and says "well that was a waste of time". We spend money on hobbies too, so if your hobby is coding and you want to spend money on an LLM subscription for your hobby, as long as you get value and enjoyment out of it, its fine.
However, if these were supposed to be commercial marketable products, and that business resources were used they yes, clearly there is a lack of planning and resource allocation. Spending time and money building something which has no use can can't be maintained is a major business error.
Sarah Brown
in reply to unpossum • •I hate this framing of ADHD as being “basically doomscrolling”. ADHD is a profoundly distressing developmental disorder that takes a decade or more off the lives of those of us with it. It’s marked by severe executive dysfunction, emotional disregulation, a terrifying fear of rejection, environmental sensitivity which can be overwhelming, impulsive and risk taking behaviour, constant short term memory problems, frequently comorbid dyspraxia, connective tissue problems, mast cell activation syndrome, cardiovascular problems, and a whole host more.
We face higher lifetime risks of early death from cancer and cardiovascular disease, higher rates of dementia, are more vulnerable to sexual and domestic abuse and violence, and greater rates of suicide.
It’s not the internet joke diagnosis of “being addicted to your phone”.
Why the hell would doctors prescribe schedule II controlled drugs (amphetamine, methylphenidate) for a “phone addiction”?
Technology reshared this.
KyuubiNoKitsune
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •SupraMario
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •meerstyler
in reply to unpossum • • •GreenBeard
in reply to meerstyler • • •rah
in reply to meerstyler • • •Just curious what makes you think there's something you could do that would save him?