Comment by danmaz74
9 hours ago
When learning basic math, you shouldn't use a calculator, because otherwise you aren't really understanding how it works. Later, when learning advanced math, you can use calculators, because you're focusing on a different abstraction level. I see the two situations as very similar.
What abstraction levels do you expect will remain only in the Human domain?
The progression from basic arithmetic, to complex ratios and basic algebra, graphing, geometry, trig, calculus, linear algebra, differential equations… all along the way, there are calculators that can help students (wolfram alpha basically). When they get to theory, proofs, etc… historically, thats where the calculator ended, but now there’s LLMs… it feels like the levels of abstractions without a “calculator” are running out.
The compiler was the “calculator” abstraction of programming, and it seems like the high-level languages now have LLMs to convert NLP to code as a sort of compiler. Especially with the explicitly stated goal of LLM companies to create the “software singularity”, I’d be interested to hear the rationale for abstractions in CS which will remain off limits to LLMs.