alt Hacker NewsIsn't the struggle of sifting through a labyrinth of physical books and learning how and where to find the right answers part of the learning process?
I would argue a machine that short-circuits the process of getting stuck in obtuse books is actually harmful long term...
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When I first opened QBasic, <N> years ago, when I was a wee lad, the online QBasic help didn't replace my trusty qbasic book (it supplemented it, maybe), nor did it write the programs for me. It was just there, doing nothing, waiting for me to press F1.
AI, on the other hand...
It’s an interesting question isn’t it? There are obvious qualities about being able to find information quickly and precisely. However, the search becomes much narrower, and what must inevitably result is a homogeneity of outcomes.
Eventually we will have to somehow convince AI of new and better ways of doing things. It’ll be propaganda campaigns waged by humans to convince God to deploy new instructions to her children.
You posted this in jest but it's literally true. You need to read the whole book to get the context. You SHOULD be reading the manuals and the docs. They weren't written because they're fun.
Well, yes -- this is why I still sit down and read the damn books. The machine is useful to refresh my memory.
learning to learn
It may well be. Books have tons of useful expository material that you may not find in docs. A library has related books sitting in close proximity to one another. I don't know how many times I've gone to a library looking for one thing but ended up finding something much more interesting. Or to just go to the library with no end goal in mind...