Comment by _dwt
1 day ago
I think we’re on opposite sides but this is the first time I’ve seen someone in the wild share my suspicions that the LLM conflict is part of some vast ADHD vs autism hyperwar. At one point I was collecting posts I found where LLM boosters explicitly mentioned how it interacted with their ADHD.
The contest you described (people with ADHD vs. autism) would have an enormously negative effect. But there are reasons to think it's unlikely. FWIW at least 25% of ADHD adults manifest autistic traits. Hardly surprising, clinicians regard overlapping neurodevelopmental disorders as the rule and not the exception.
An online community works when participants learn and share knowledge gained. Contests, with self or others, disrupt learning and sharing, hence by definition constitute "bad behavior". If it exists, the hyperwar you allude to will harm communities more than all LLMs combined could do.
I'm pretty skeptical of people who are ADHD and claim to be getting boosted by LLMs.
It's hell for my ADHD, personally. It's an infinite rabbit hole generator and distraction machine. I have to use browser extensions to filter out stuff like Stack Exchange suggestions for interesting topics, too. I have had to block Wikipedia in the past to avoid rabbit holes there
I'm better now than I used to be but I am skeptical of people who claim to both be good at multi-tasking and also have ADHD. My experience with ADHD is that multi -tasking is not a strength, it's a sign of distraction
> ... multi-tasking is not a strength, it's a sign of distraction
Interesting point of view from one who's been there. Intuitively the comment makes a lot of sense.
In a way human multitasking resembles how single-threaded computer programs work. That is, we focus on one task at a time but tasks can be interleaved to give an illusion of doing several tasks at the same time. Managing several tasks requires remembering the next step to do when leaving one task to attend to another.
That suggests ADHD people lose track of where they left off when performing several tasks. Distraction plays a role, but I think problematic working memory is the major issue. Among ADHD researchers there's a saying, "people with ADHD know what to do but don't do what they know." ADHD task performance may improve with proper treatment.
Not diagnosed, on online “tests” I score just shy of the ADHD threshold, and I find myself in this. If only I properly remembered and agreed on what I wanted to do yesterday it would be fantastic. Even if I write it down and happen to remember to check the notes, it’s almost like I was a different person yesterday, todays priorities are all new
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> That suggests ADHD people lose track of where they left off when performing several tasks
Not quite. At least not for me. My problem is hyperfocus. If I switch tasks I might go down a rabbit hole and forget to change back. It is similar to being distracted, except the distraction can still be legitimate work stuff. My focus is like a freight train, it's hard to change tracks
Which can seem like an attention problem when you're trying to change me from focused code mode to "jump on a call" mode
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For me it's a dopamine machine. I get my doses of lacking dopamine from completing things.
Agents let me complete things in parallel all the time.
They also let me build tools that manage all the attention-grabbing things in my life. Something I've been meaning to do "tomorrow" for a good decade.
I've already built custom notification tools for all the "I'll just quickly check hn/lobste.rs/tildes/whatever" so that they'll tell me if there's something actionable, closing down the rabbit hole for me. My email is pre-filtered by an agent that pings me if there's something urgent. My IRC client is custom-built for the specific way I use it etc etc.
>At one point I was collecting posts I found where LLM boosters explicitly mentioned how it interacted with their ADHD.
Care to share it?
No, it felt too invasive and creepy so I abandoned the idea. Or my lack of follow-through is a sign that I’m actually on the other side of the “war”. Reader decides! But suffice it to say that it was, to me, a significant trend especially around the “Claude Code moment” back in February/March is this year.
Autism should not be framed as being "opposted" to ADHD. The correct axis is "Autistic" (Neurosis) as opposed to Psychosis. Opposite poles but with a little bit of horseshoe theory dynamics