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0 pointseastbound8mo ago0 comments

> find my way driving without a GPS. Reading a map? lol

Most people would still be able to. But we fantasize about the usefulness of maps. I remember myself on the Paris circular highway (at the time 110km/h, not 50km/h like today), the map on the driving wheel, super dangerous. You say you’d miss GPS features on a paper map, but back then we had the same problems: It didn’t speak, didn’t have the blinking position, didn’t tell you which lane to take, it simplified details to the point of losing you…

You won’t become less clever with AI: You already have Youtube for that. You’ll just become augmented.

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apetresc8mo ago

Nobody is debating the usefulness of GPS versus a paper map. Obviously the paper map was worse. The point is precisely that because GPS is so much better than maps, we delegate all direction-finding to the GPS and completely lose our ability to navigate without it.

A 1990s driver without a map is probably a lot more capable of muddling their way to the destination than a 2020s driver without their GPS.

That's the right analogy. Whether you think it matters how well people can navigate without GPS in a world of ubiquitous phones (and, to bring the analogy back, how well people will be able to program without an LLM after a generation or two of ubiquitous AI) is, of course, a judgment call.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointseastbound8mo ago0 comments

> find my way driving without a GPS. Reading a map? lol

You won’t become less clever with AI: You already have Youtube for that. You’ll just become augmented.

0 comments

apetresc8mo ago

A 1990s driver without a map is probably a lot more capable of muddling their way to the destination than a 2020s driver without their GPS.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse