Comment by fragmede
3 days ago
It's all in the preamble before the later sections of learning and my implicit point was that my social awkwardness got better when I stopped trying to show off how smart I am. It still comes out occasionally, and I don't try to be condescending, so I do really appreciate my close friends when they give me feedback when I am.
My other point though is that as people using AI to generate content take the time to tell ChatGPT that it sounds like ChatGPT and to rewrite it to not sound like that, that people are going to be suspicious of anything recondite that isn't in common parlance. But I'm a believer in xkcd 810, so what can I say.
Trying to show off how smart one is is probably part of the motivation behind many interesting comments posted on here, and more generally, a big motivation behind a huge number of the useful things people do. Doing it in a non-obvious way requires additional ingenuity. The cumulative effect of people trying to show off how smart they are has undoubtedly greatly accelerated the development of our species.
For better or worse, it was probably the main driver. Since time immemorial, people have been competing for mates and resources in a social hierarchy.
I can almost guarantee that the number of people who have made substantive scientific contributions to society were far more interested in their chosen object of study than they were with their perceived intelligence. I can think of a few, perhaps, but that number is slim.
I know this article wasn't written by an LLM because the writing isn't mediocre.
I don't know or care about the LLM use, but you are spot on about the egotism. This person is just like every other "i'm smarter than you and I have to show you that, see me, appreciate my intelligence! reward me for knowing things!" insufferable goon I've ever encountered, myself included. One day the author might realize that healthy, social relationships, "connection", stem from actually giving a shit about people who aren't me myself and I, but some people never get there.