Random thoughts on AI and self-education
and why I haven't posted in a while
It’s been a while since my last article, and my plan was to go in-depth on implementing threads on WASM. But company work has been getting in the way. In the meantime, I had some random thoughts I felt like sharing.
I’m often critical of AI around here, mostly as a response to the overhyped promises (a.k.a. lies) many people post. That said, I think the technology itself is remarkable.
One thing I’m noticing is that more people are building game engines (actual game developers, not tech bros).
Maybe similar to how Google unlocked more access to information, AI might be unlocking it even more by making this information digestible to beginners.
When I first started studying graphics, I picked up Graphics Programming with DirectX 9 - Part 1. It’s a 1000-page book. It wasn’t easy nor fun to read, and it was especially hard not having anyone to ask clarification questions to. I think my past self would have enjoyed being able to ask AI to break down some of these concepts, ask why things weren’t compiling, what the application of X is, and so on.
One might say that the difficulty I experienced is part of learning, and making it easier would make me learn less, but I disagree. There is an optimal “difficulty setting” for learning, which varies from person to person and by experience level. If you can have a teacher when starting out, it’s extremely beneficial, and many people don’t have access to a private tutor.
The internet was a massive unlock by making information publicly accessible, AI might help it more by making this information digestible.
So maybe like me you don’t want to use AI for programming (you want to actually be able to do it yourself), but you might like using AI for learning.
What do you think of the above? Have you tried using AI this way? I would genuinely want to know.
But my problem is that AI often gives wrong answers (yes even now), at which point I have to go looking for documentation/another person. The real problem as always is that these machines don't really think, and so I find them to be of limited utility.
Totally agree. That is exactly how I mainly use "AI". Feels like a Google on steroids (and then some). As someone said "LLMs are knowledge databases which can be queried by human language". I lost my "fear" of complex topics which I didn't touch because of their complexity and/or steep learning curve (which also results in a "lot of time").
That being said they are potentially dangerous for someone without prior knowledge and understanding on how they work. But for the quick introduction to something that is (relatively) common knowledge they are extremely good in my experience.
It's sad that LLMs are now mainly sold as "giving a man a fish" instead of "teaching a man to fish".