The Feeling of Power! A reflection on Isaac Asimov on a Snowed in Monday

Isaac Asimov writes an interesting story. I like to look at different stories and facets of said stories and this tale has some interesting ones. There's a facet of sci-fi writing and news reports that sensationalize and dream the extremes. Without being a pessimist, I think it is a far leap to say that humans will forget education in favor of letting computers do their work. And if there ARE people who want to do that, what would be the point? Education is one of the greatest gifts on the planet in my opinion, and to that I think Asimov agrees.

In my time of using LLMs, I think there's a bold, THICK line between what they can and can't do. And in my opinion, they won't ever cross that line. And that is Art, planning, and design. My Professor Dr. Kirkpatrick would say, LLMs are "Stochastic Bullshit Machines". They don't think. They approximate a likely next word based on associations between words. Now, I do use LLMs quite frequently. Let me give you an example of my use cases. I love to talk outloud-it helps me process information and follow a thread of logic thoroughly. LLMs can be a good socratic partner. So when I have a text (such as The Feeling of Power) I like to ask it to talk through some of my thoughts with me. NOTE: I don't ask it to read for me. I don't ask for a summary. This is the line I draw: I want to experience my thoughts and educate myself in the world surrounding me, and I like to use it to assist in that endeavor.

In setting up this server, I used AI a lot. There is a big difference between sending "Do X" as a prompt and "explain to me how to do X". I want to use AI to learn because I do not anticipate a day that is similar to Asimov's where we are allowed the laziness of forgetting.

For this class, I wonder what it would look like to make a comical presentation filled with examples of where these lines were crossed and the result failed. There are plenty of examples out there. Or maybe writing more of these blog posts about the history of AI in a more researched way. But thats all for today on this chilly, snowed in Monday.