On 08.08.26 21:12, Andreas Tille wrote:
He once told us that real math is done with pen and paper (and eraser) but not with computers
I would amend this to state that *learning* Real Math is done with pen and paper. Once you're good enough, sure, use your calculator; you're not going to learn anything by doing your 1000th long-hand division, or looking up yet another logarithm in a book.
Likewise, learning to program is done by editing your code and fixing syntax errors, and learning to package Debian is learned by fighting Lintian et al.. Once you're good enough, sure, use an LLM; packaging your 100th Python package or Rust crate by hand is just a waste of time.
Also, sometimes you don't want to "learn math". You simply want to calculate something. So you start a spreadsheet, or whatever other tool gets the job done. You do need to know enough to select the right tool, of course …
We know mankind pays a price for the ability to move fast. Regarding flights I evaluate every single one - sometimes I do not even fly to DebConf like this year. I have friends telling me I should not fly at all. Since I know I will not save the world when I stop flying completely I simply try to reduce it to what I personally consider "responsible".
There's another aspect here. People tend to compensate, sometimes over-. Certain ex-friends of mine are strict vegans, because of the climate (they say), but still fly half-way round the world for their annual vacation … which AFAICT sums up to somewhat less CO₂ than the standard meat-eater's diet, but *way* more than my own flexitarianism (ovo-lacto-veggie with the occasional seafood or insect burger thrown in), which they are holier-than-though about. Which is, ultimately, why they're EX-friends.
You can draw up analogies to LLMs yourself. (Does hacking on something yourself for a day really save energy, compared to running an LLM for five minutes? if power prices are negative anyway because it's summer and we have a solar surplus? and so on. NB this is meant as food for thought; let's not start a pseudo-environmentalist sub-thread here.)
NB I do agree with Andreas that the ballot has too many options. Fortunately, Condorcet is clone-proof. On the other hand, the "bah so many choices why do I even bother" effect is still a concern — while it's possible that the avid pro- or anti-LLM DD will not be affected much, it'd be a shame to lose the middle ground here.
-- -- regards -- -- Matthias Urlichs
OpenPGP_signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
