Thread

1. dumberquestions · 1790438138 · focus · HN ↗

   The drop from 2018 to 2022 is as big as the one from 2022 to 2026, so it's not obvious whether AI had a role at all, although it's highly plausible.

   I suspect the bigger culprit is the optimized monetization of human attention, because pre-algorithmic social media doesn't seem to be as destructive. The fact that science wasn't as affected as math and reading (both of which rely more on attention/practice than rote memorization) somewhat supports this.

   1. jimbob45 · 1790440689 · focus · HN ↗

      WolframAlpha was able to do advanced calculus in 2009 fully for free. LLMs shouldn’t have affected math performance at all because the tools were already readily available for a decade at that point.

      1. xdavidliu · 1790440981 · focus · HN ↗

         totally false equivalency. wolfram alpha cannot one shot word problems for one, and there are many many more.

         1. jimbob45 · 1790445314 · focus · HN ↗

            It got you 90% of the way there once you’d translated the problem. I can’t imagine LLMs ultimately saved more time per problem than WA did.

            1. bdangubic · 1790449859 · focus · HN ↗

               I would bet that plot of WA users vs AI users, same age groups etc would look pretty funny as comparison
      2. pixl97 · 1790441743 · focus · HN ↗

         Wolfram is a tool, and LLM even without a harness is much closer to an agent.

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