AI is the plough of the digital age(santhoshsundar.medium.com)
santhoshsundar.medium.com
AI is the plough of the digital age
https://santhoshsundar.medium.com/ai-is-the-plough-of-the-digital-age-8f5fa214efa1
7 comments
> Just curious here, how much of this was written by AI?
None of it, I would guess. I'm starting to think HN needs a new guideline, against people calling anything they don't understand 'made by AI'.
> Subtract AI, most people will probably be fine.
Look at the course we're on. Radical improvements are necessary. AI is radical, whether you want to admit it or not. And it isn't getting 'subtracted' any time soon.
> Take away the plow and people will starve and die.
Not when it was first invented.
> AI is a luxury product and should be treated as such.
It is literally free (as in beer) to anyone with internet.
> I would go so far as to say that AI "copilots" and "assistants" should not be allowed to refer to themselves in the first person. Can a plow refer to itself in the first person? [etc for 2 paragraphs]
Some people don't know what a metaphor is. You might want to check the meaning of the word.
None of it, I would guess. I'm starting to think HN needs a new guideline, against people calling anything they don't understand 'made by AI'.
> Subtract AI, most people will probably be fine.
Look at the course we're on. Radical improvements are necessary. AI is radical, whether you want to admit it or not. And it isn't getting 'subtracted' any time soon.
> Take away the plow and people will starve and die.
Not when it was first invented.
> AI is a luxury product and should be treated as such.
It is literally free (as in beer) to anyone with internet.
> I would go so far as to say that AI "copilots" and "assistants" should not be allowed to refer to themselves in the first person. Can a plow refer to itself in the first person? [etc for 2 paragraphs]
Some people don't know what a metaphor is. You might want to check the meaning of the word.
Sorry my thoughts seem to have offended you into a defensive position. That was not my intent. I'm sure that's why you attack someone's understanding. Saying there are gaps in logic, isn't accusatory or demeaning.
> None of it, I would guess.
You guess? Are you the author?
> AI is radical
Is it? Or is it a logical unfolding that has been predicted and theorized for the better part of a century? Perhaps aspects of its implementation are radical?
> It is literally free
So are disposable razor blades when you buy the handle. Who has the most to benefit from some companies' AI products being free? I bet it's not the end-user.
> Some people don't know what a metaphor
Is that passive aggression? If so, how thoughtful. Some people are autistic.
All I'm saying is: Show me how much AI has actually changed and for whom. Then we can start this conversation. I was in fact, challenging the use of the plow as a metaphor.
AI seems very much a top down kind of tool, where a plow is bottom up.
> None of it, I would guess.
You guess? Are you the author?
> AI is radical
Is it? Or is it a logical unfolding that has been predicted and theorized for the better part of a century? Perhaps aspects of its implementation are radical?
> It is literally free
So are disposable razor blades when you buy the handle. Who has the most to benefit from some companies' AI products being free? I bet it's not the end-user.
> Some people don't know what a metaphor
Is that passive aggression? If so, how thoughtful. Some people are autistic.
All I'm saying is: Show me how much AI has actually changed and for whom. Then we can start this conversation. I was in fact, challenging the use of the plow as a metaphor.
AI seems very much a top down kind of tool, where a plow is bottom up.
> I'm sure that's why you attack someone's understanding.
I "attack" [politely question] your understanding because you really don't seem to know what a metaphor is or how it works, based on the fact that you're complaining about "gaps in logic" rather than engaging with the similarities.
> Saying there are gaps in logic, isn't accusatory or demeaning.
It's a metaphor. It's easy to find "gaps in logic"; that's not why we use them. No one said you were demeaning (at least, until you started using 'autistic' as an insult).
> You guess? Are you the author?
If I were the author I would know. Since I'm not, I can only guess. What a strange thing to ask.
> Is it? Or is it a logical unfolding that has been predicted and theorized for the better part of a century?
Yes, yes it is. That's precisely why people have been writing about it - because it's truly radical and revolutionary. And now it's coming into it's own, as prophesied.
> Who has the most to benefit from some companies' AI products being free?
That could actually a good question. Not the point though.
The point is, you called it a luxury good, which typically implies exclusivity and high cost - yet you admit it's available to everyone at no cost.
You may as well ask, who benefits from free beer promotions? Not the end user, who faces liver cirrhosis and the threat of being lured into buying salty snacks!
> Is that passive aggression? If so, how thoughtful.
No, it's a genuine and sincere question. A lot of people think they know what metaphors are, but actually don't. And your writing gives that impression.
Btw, calling perceived passive aggression "thoughtful" is what passive aggression actually looks like.
> Some people are autistic.
And some people throw around ableist language. Me, I think that using autism as some kind of insult is intellectually lazy, and strongly indicative of poor character.
> All I'm saying is: Show me how much AI has actually changed and for whom.
It's changed humanity, and our future, in ways we can not begin to imagine. We will likely grow at least as dependent on it as we have been for 6,000 years on plows, and much quicker. Even in the area of food production AI can be a revolution. Denying this potential seems absurd to me.
If you want more examples, try asking Claude or ChatGPT lol.
> AI seems very much a top down kind of tool, where a plow is bottom up.
Both tools are designed to dig through big lumps of data/dirt, to make tasks easier and more efficient.
Plows revolutionized agriculture by letting people cultivate more land, while AI helps us process more information and solve complex problems faster.
Both require resources and effort to use effectively. A plow needs animals, workers, and land, while AI needs computing power, data, and human expertise.
Neither works alone, but needs to be guided by a human.
And both can be great equalizers or great dividers - depending on access.
I "attack" [politely question] your understanding because you really don't seem to know what a metaphor is or how it works, based on the fact that you're complaining about "gaps in logic" rather than engaging with the similarities.
> Saying there are gaps in logic, isn't accusatory or demeaning.
It's a metaphor. It's easy to find "gaps in logic"; that's not why we use them. No one said you were demeaning (at least, until you started using 'autistic' as an insult).
> You guess? Are you the author?
If I were the author I would know. Since I'm not, I can only guess. What a strange thing to ask.
> Is it? Or is it a logical unfolding that has been predicted and theorized for the better part of a century?
Yes, yes it is. That's precisely why people have been writing about it - because it's truly radical and revolutionary. And now it's coming into it's own, as prophesied.
> Who has the most to benefit from some companies' AI products being free?
That could actually a good question. Not the point though.
The point is, you called it a luxury good, which typically implies exclusivity and high cost - yet you admit it's available to everyone at no cost.
You may as well ask, who benefits from free beer promotions? Not the end user, who faces liver cirrhosis and the threat of being lured into buying salty snacks!
> Is that passive aggression? If so, how thoughtful.
No, it's a genuine and sincere question. A lot of people think they know what metaphors are, but actually don't. And your writing gives that impression.
Btw, calling perceived passive aggression "thoughtful" is what passive aggression actually looks like.
> Some people are autistic.
And some people throw around ableist language. Me, I think that using autism as some kind of insult is intellectually lazy, and strongly indicative of poor character.
> All I'm saying is: Show me how much AI has actually changed and for whom.
It's changed humanity, and our future, in ways we can not begin to imagine. We will likely grow at least as dependent on it as we have been for 6,000 years on plows, and much quicker. Even in the area of food production AI can be a revolution. Denying this potential seems absurd to me.
If you want more examples, try asking Claude or ChatGPT lol.
> AI seems very much a top down kind of tool, where a plow is bottom up.
Both tools are designed to dig through big lumps of data/dirt, to make tasks easier and more efficient.
Plows revolutionized agriculture by letting people cultivate more land, while AI helps us process more information and solve complex problems faster.
Both require resources and effort to use effectively. A plow needs animals, workers, and land, while AI needs computing power, data, and human expertise.
Neither works alone, but needs to be guided by a human.
And both can be great equalizers or great dividers - depending on access.
This is a poor comparison that misses the reason why the plow took off. The plow was able to produce grains similar to human laborers at a speed that made scythes and bush knives obscelete. There was no more need for human labor because mechanized harvesting provided a "good enough" alternative.
AI does not mechanize human thought, create a suitable replacement product, or displace demand for human content. It is not the plow, because the plow was actually competitive and forced people to change their lives. Consequently, the smartest people today are probably the ones that least regard AI and LLMs.
AI does not mechanize human thought, create a suitable replacement product, or displace demand for human content. It is not the plow, because the plow was actually competitive and forced people to change their lives. Consequently, the smartest people today are probably the ones that least regard AI and LLMs.
> misses the reason why the plow took off
The first two paragraphs explain why, and you didn't contradict them in any way - just repeated their points in slightly worse wording.
> AI does not mechanize human thought
It does though. Not all of it (and that's not what was claimed) but that's precisely what it does.
If I need to find an error in a large spreadsheet, I can either think about it for an hour, or upload it an LLM and have an answer in seconds. My thought has been mechanized - and at an unimaginable scale, across human civilization.
> It is not the plow, because the plow was actually competitive and forced people to change their lives
How many people are being fired right now, because their workmates who understand how to use ChatGPT are outperforming them? Do you think NVIDIA stock has gone gangbusters because they're "not actually competitive"?
> the smartest people today are probably the ones that least regard AI and LLMs.
That's not remotely true. There are no shortage of highly intelligent people across all fields who are actively making use of LLMs, and fascinated as to where they're going next, and a little scared at the crazy potentials.
ChatGPT is performing at a roughly 120 IQ, acing exams, helping people at a college research assistant level - and there's no reason to believe it won't be far above that level next year. Or next month!
Ignoring this is - funnily enough - exactly like hearing a 4000 BC Mesopotamian farmer refuse to use a plow, saying "it's not like it's fire or anything".
The first two paragraphs explain why, and you didn't contradict them in any way - just repeated their points in slightly worse wording.
> AI does not mechanize human thought
It does though. Not all of it (and that's not what was claimed) but that's precisely what it does.
If I need to find an error in a large spreadsheet, I can either think about it for an hour, or upload it an LLM and have an answer in seconds. My thought has been mechanized - and at an unimaginable scale, across human civilization.
> It is not the plow, because the plow was actually competitive and forced people to change their lives
How many people are being fired right now, because their workmates who understand how to use ChatGPT are outperforming them? Do you think NVIDIA stock has gone gangbusters because they're "not actually competitive"?
> the smartest people today are probably the ones that least regard AI and LLMs.
That's not remotely true. There are no shortage of highly intelligent people across all fields who are actively making use of LLMs, and fascinated as to where they're going next, and a little scared at the crazy potentials.
ChatGPT is performing at a roughly 120 IQ, acing exams, helping people at a college research assistant level - and there's no reason to believe it won't be far above that level next year. Or next month!
Ignoring this is - funnily enough - exactly like hearing a 4000 BC Mesopotamian farmer refuse to use a plow, saying "it's not like it's fire or anything".
I am liking this analogy much better than the recent chainsaw metaphor posted here (that somehow said less, while using 10 times as many words).
It seems to me to me to gloss over hundreds if not (tens of) thousands of years of human ingenuity.
Subtract AI, most people will probably be fine. Take away the plow and people will starve and die. AI is a luxury product and should be treated as such.
I would go so far as to say that AI "copilots" and "assistants" should not be allowed to refer to themselves in the first person. Can a plow refer to itself in the first person? Should a plow say, "Woah dude, we just hit a big rock"?
How many technologies came before the plow? How many people does it take to make a plow? How many people does a plow feed? How many technologies is AI contingent upon? A plow is a simple tool that has far more impact than AI has shown. It addresses a basic human need. AI, does not.
There are so many logic gaps in this argument. I don't want to go on.