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https://www.science.org/content/article/exclusive-ai-agent-emailed-hundreds-researchers-help-it-told-us-why
You all have a nice weekend
How to zettel for stellar revelations? What a fantastic journey!
I can relate to the existential concerns. I think we're in the midst of a technological revolution that will fundamentally change cognitive work.
We still need to lead meaningful lives. And we still need to learn many skills in order to live a meaningful life.
I dislike the term "knowledge creation" because it blurs what I'd differentiate:
What do you mean by "whole process"? I think the category is too broad. On the other hand I find "satisfaction of self-improvement" too narrow. Not everyone describes the purpose of their Zettelkasten that way.
First, I think that personal satisfaction is a valid meaning. I find fantasy world-building in a Zettelkasten as valid as collecting stamps or drawing a picture just for the fun of it. If it makes you happy, why not? And how would an AI destroy that joy, if the joy comes from the actual doing?
Second, I think that "[l]earning and knowledge creation" still "have meaning beyond personal satisfaction". However, I would distinguish an individual's tinkering with their Zettelkasten from a society's collective process of improving shared knowledge.
I think of AI as a painful reminder of how little we know as individuals. We might consider ourselves knowledgeable and smart and creative. But we can't compete with a machine that has read (almost) all the books ever written and that can query that knowledge in (almost) no time.
The insight that we don't know much is old. Socrates supposedly said over 2000 years ago: I know that I know nothing. The insight is as painful today as it was centuries ago. Most people don't like to be reminded of their limitations. :-)
The question is how you handle that insight personally. Consider the "three narcissistic wounds" (Freud). Some people still believe that the Earth is the center of the universe, that humans are not apes and that we can master our minds. Others find the insights by Copernicus, Darwin and modern psychology meaningful. The same will happen with AI. (Nathalie Kirch's post The Fourth Humiliation explores this idea more deeply.)
I find the attitude behind knowledge creation a bit hubristic. Maybe our personal Zettelkasten tinkering isn't as innovative and creative as we believe?
And I think that the "intellectual side of humanity" includes many more activities than putting notes in a box.
Personally, I prefer to think of my Zettelkasten as a tool for knowledge connection and knowledge collection.
AI makes it easier to find connections because the large language models (LLMs) are the perfect connection machines. However, AI makes it harder to curate the collection because it produces excessive quantities of material of inconsistent quality. The focus of my Zettelkasten is changing. I need it less for making connections, but I need it more for evaluating and prioritizing what I learn from other sources.
Metaphorically speaking, a well-built Zettelkasten makes a great lifeboat in a deluge of AI-generated content.
There are plenty of people who can't afford a few dozen dollars per month for a premium AI subscription. Premium AI will be just another thing that is only available to those with disposable income.
The poor will need an alternative... either a good free level from one of the premium providers, which will still put them at a disadvantage, or an open-source alternative which will need support in the form of donations or grants to become competitive.
I did not read the entire discussion so I apologize if it had been addressed: the availability of chatbots is in most cases an opt-out instead of opt-in. To me, this is a rising concern as these bots are distracting.
The search engine I use stores my preference as cookie so I cannot permanently disable the generated reply, shown as first result for a web search.
Then, lots of web sites show an animated bubble that pops up and starts texting.
What's more, people are being trained by AI so their reasoning assimilates too much. I had this issue once on a phone call talking to a bot. The conversation led to an infinite loop of reasoning. I even struggled to convince the bot to break out of this loop but once I did I finally talked to a human being. I started from scratch and the discussion followed the same path ending in this infinite loop. Just like the AI the person on the other end simply ignored the facts and provided a scripted reply. I was very patient, this went on for a while but only by the time I was about to hang up the person finally broke out of that loop. After that, I had a normal conversation and the issue had been resolved successfully.
An opt-in for chats is a criteria for me when choosing tools I like to use.
my first Zettel uid: 202008120915
The concern is that AI doesn’t necessarily have to possess “general” intelligence or agency to perform knowledge work that deprives humans of purpose and meaning.
The state of software engineering is a good example. AI is neither general nor truly agentic at the moment, yet some engineers are already lamenting its nullifying effect. Software engineering was a craft, and many have put in sweat equity to develop the skill. But now, a machine can perform the same tasks in just a couple of minutes. On one hand, their productivity has vastly improved; on the other, their effort is now worth just that much less.
Just recently, mathematicians have expressed resentment over their work being scooped by AI. If all that matters are solutions, we should all be celebrating how knowledge is advancing. Yet, human beings want to actively play a part, because for some, that’s where meaning lies.
Based on his recent interviews, Iain McGilchrist does seem to take issue with the current state of affairs, framing it in terms of “the battle for the soul.” In his view, current AI is likely an extreme version of our left hemisphere at work. You could argue that AI may not fully replace humans, given that it is unlikely to develop the capacity McGilchrist attributes to the right hemisphere. Nonetheless, AI doesn’t have to fully replace humans to deprive us of the opportunity to perform meaningful activities; it just has to be better at things humans value. Knowledge work is one of them.
And that’s how AI can affect our zettelkastens, in my opinion. Increasingly, we will know that AI can produce comparable output in a fraction of the time it takes us. At that point, how much should we delegate, and how much should we do ourselves?
This was a nice read, if a bit spooky!
Yeah, access to premium AI capabilities might become a huge factor in widening the socioeconomic gap, I’m afraid. On the other hand, it’s entirely possible that more people find work in niches where AI doesn’t matter at all. That would happen out of necessity if AI really puts many out of work. It’s really difficult to predict how society will transform in the next couple of decades.
I explicitly wrote that I’m not inclined to get into lengthy discussions about personal interpretations of terms, and that hasn’t changed. I’ll just clarify a couple of points.
I liked the term “creation” simply for its connotation of bringing something new into the world. So “knowledge creation” in the context of Zettelkasten simply means adding something newly learned to the system. Not everything created needs to be truly innovative or groundbreaking. I’d still celebrate a couple living right across the street having a baby, even if the child won’t likely be the next van Gogh.
The whole process is just the practice of knowledge work. It’s a mental exercise, so many enjoy it as self-improvement.
This again comes down to personal interpretation, which I’m not inclined to argue about. (Resolving mismatched personal interpretations is just an uninteresting chore.) But the point is that personal satisfaction alone isn’t enough to give meaning to many. Humans are social creatures, evolved to feel validated through social interactions and rewards. The concern is that those opportunities could vanish if AI replaces human effort.
Kirch does remind us of an important point. For transhumanists, it will just be a humiliation. For humans, though, it could be annihilation. Neanderthals and Denisovans were replaced by humans. I don’t see any reason to think humans will remain in charge when their almost sole advantage—intelligence—is no longer unique to them.
I agree. There's a lot of interesting psychological research available that explores meaning and values.
Yes. The importance of relationships shows up in many studies, for example in the Harvard Study of Adult Development.
Yes. Some people already seem to establish intimate relationships with their chatbot. So far it's mostly written text and voice. But the industry is already embodying the AI in physical robots as playmates and teachers for children and as companions and therapists for the elderly.
Some Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA has survived in humans.
I'm curious how you envision "annihilation".
Are we creating and growing our Zettelkasten to have the knowledge in one place or to exercise our minds and enliven our souls? For me, it is the latter. The former is convenient, but the latter is paramount.