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Comment by booleandilemma | Hacker News Reader

I used to have dozens of phone numbers memorized. Once I got a cell phone I forgot everyone's number. I don't even know the phone number of my own mother.

I don't want to lose my ability to think. I don't want to become intellectually dependent on AI in the slightest.

I've been programming for over a decade without AI and I don't suddenly need it now.

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It's more complicated than that—this trade-off between using a tool to extend our capabilities and developing our own muscles is as old as history. See the dialog between Theuth and Thamus about writing. Writing does have the effects that Socrates warned about, but it's also been an unequivocal net positive for humanity in general and for most humans in particular. For one thing, it's why we have a record of the debate about the merits of writing.

> O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1636/1636-h/1636-h.htm

TIL: Another instance of history repeating itself.

Interesting perspective. I read your first line about phone numbers as a fantastic thing -- people used to have to memorize multiple 10 digit phone numbers, now you can think about your contacts' names and relationships.

But... I think you were actually bemoaning the shift from numbers to names as a loss?

Have you not run into trouble when your phone is dead but you have to contact someone? I have, it's frustrating. Thankfully I remember my partners number, though its the only one these days.

I had to maintain a little physical phone book because, while I can memorize 10 people’s numbers, I cant memorize 25, 50, 100. Not having that with me when I needed it, or if you lost it and had no backup, was far less convenient than today. It feels like this is a case of magnifying a minor, rare modern inconvenience and ignoring all the huge inconveniences of the past in favor of a super narrow case where it was debatably “better”.

These things are not mutually exclusive. Remembering numbers didn't hinder our ability to remember our contacts' names.

We don't know how brain exactly works, but I don't think we can now do some things better just because we are not using another function of our brains anymore.

(not op) for me its a matter of dependency. great, as long as i have my phone I can just ask siri to call my sister, but if I need to use someone else's phone because mines lost or dead, well, how am I going to do that?

Same as AI. Cool it makes you 5x as efficient at your job. But after a decade of using it, can you got back to 1x efficiency without it? Or are you just making the highly optimistic leap that you will retain access to the tech in perpetuity.

I'm curious what your exposure to the available tools has been so far.

Which, if any, have you used?

Did you give them a fair shot on the off-chance that they aid you in getting orders of magnitude more work done than you did previously while still leveraging the experience you've gained?

I still remember the numbers I used as a kid.

Anyway now as an adult I have to remember a lot of pin codes.

* Door to home * Door to office * Door to gf's place * Bank card #1 * Bank card #2 * Bank card #3 * Phone #1 * Phone #2

Well, sure. I can remember phone numbers from 30+ years ago approximately instantly.

I don't have to remember most of them from today, so I simply don't. (I do keep a few current numbers squirreled away in my little pea brain that will help me get rolling again, but I'll probably only ever need to actually use those memories if I ever fall out of the sky and onto a desert island that happens to have a payphone with a bucket of change next to it.)

On a daily, non-outlier basis, I'm no worse for not generally remembering phone numbers. I might even be better off today than I was decades ago, by no longer having to spend the brainpower required for programming new phone numbers into it.

I mean: I grew up reading paper road maps and [usually] helping my dad plan and navigate on road trips. The map pocket in the door of that old Chevrolet was stuffed with folded maps of different areas of the US.

But about the time I started taking my own solo road trips, things like the [OG] MapBlast! website started calculating and charting driving directions that could be printed. This made route planning a lot faster and easier.

Later, we got to where we are today with GPS navigation that has live updates for traffic and road conditions using systems like Waze. This has almost completely eliminated the chores of route planning and remembering directions (and alternate routes) from my life, and while I do have exactly one road map in my car that I do keep updated I haven't actually ever used it for anything since 2008 or so.

And am I less of a person today than I was back when paper maps were the order of the day? No, I don't think that I am -- in fact, I think these kinds of tools have made me much more capable than I ever was.

We call things like this "progress."

I do not yearn for the days before LLM any more than I yearn for the days before the cotton gin or the slide rule or Stack Overflow.

well true to your name you are reducing it to a boolean dilemma

When is the Butlerian Jihad scheduled?

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