We were told LLMs were going to expand human thought and democratize insight, unlock knowledge, and turn every confused but supposedly intellectually curious citizen into a clear headed philosopher. And what they often do instead is compress thinking down to whatever can pass inspection of social conformity. They don’t widen the mind so much as…
Tag: Mediocrity
Consensus Ensures Mediocrity
You ask the LLM a question and it “knows” things to helpfully tell you what’s true. The vendor pitch is a little more sophisticated, calling it a reasoning engine, promising it can “help you think” and “accelerate knowledge work.” But the actual machine you interact with, day to day, is neither an oracle nor philosopher,…
Hate the Inferior
You ever hire someone to do a job, and then halfway through, you start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, you would’ve been better off asking your pet goldfish for help? Yeah, well, let me tell you about the time I decided to hire a contractor to recaulk my shower. I know what you’re thinking,…