When I had started my PhD, I thought the writing part of a paper was just the last thing I needed to do to summarize my results, like a boring epilogue to the more exciting science. What surprised me was how much of the scientific process relied on my ability to convey my ideas to someone else. And to be able to do that you need clarity of mind, you need to have worked through multiple drafts to be able to get to your point as efficiently and clearly as possible. So many times I only discovered what I was actually researching during the writing part.
The problem with AI writing is that it makes people believe that writing is just writing and not a tool for thinking very deeply about the topic you are writing about. I am not completely opposed to AI assisted writing, but if I see AI writing, it’s telling me that the author tried to take a shortcut in their own thinking and it’s a good heuristic that the ideas will not be thought through enough to warrant my complete attention.
This happened to me recently. I just asked what the prompt was. I found it really tough to read AI words, not knowing the weight to put in each word. A almost gave it more credit than was due and responded in detail, before seeing the prompt and responding barely at all - equivalent to the thought put in.
Most of my projects are born out of scribbles on paper, system diagrams with boxes and little arrows to try to describe the system I want to build or my thought process written down like in this post.
When I get it on paper and everything feels right I start creating the codebase but I have to get it down first, feels like I remember it more after I save my thoughts to external paper storage.
I have over the decades tried every combination I can think up or have read about for designing things and I always land back in the same place, A4 5mm square pad (cheap but not the cheapest) and a really good (but not expensive) set of ballpoints in black/blue/red/green (and mostly it's black anyway).
There is something about the complete free form nature of pen and paper that makes me think better, I bought a nice ipad/pencil a few years ago thinking that would replicate it but it didn't, it was closer but not close.
If it's something I want to keep I just take a photo but vast majority of notes are transient anyway.
Agreed, I used to role my eyes when my professors asked me to do things like pseudocode (which I still don't do too much) but the act of writing an outline for the general structure of a program always helped me get over the initial hump of starting a new project.
It's an attractive thought, this comparative look at FA and TM. However it is misleading to an extent.
A Turing Machine's capabilities exceed the FA's because it has a 'store of knowledge'. It is both recording and reading, repeatedly. There is erasure, too. So if we're aspiring to TM-hood, the guidance seems to be write, and re-read (your own thoughts), and re-evaluate, and re-write. This process is subject to the halting problem. /g
Writing as a thinking tool has become sort of a meme these days.
And, yes, I also generally believe it’s a good thing to use it as a tool. I try to do use it as often as I can.
But… I think it’s also important to note that there are - like with almost anything - pitfalls and downsides. I rarely see them discussed and thus want to bring them up:
For highly analytical people, writing may become counterproductive. Especially, when it is used to continuously elaborate thoughts rather than to challenge assumptions, test hypotheses or reach decisions.
It can lead to over-analyzing or pseudo-rationalizing.
Beyond all this, there's also tailoring your message to your audience.
In sales, you might call this finding "words that work" or "the pain points". AI will not know how to do this because it's getting a vibe check of the room.
You cannot merely be a sensory part for the AI unless you want to sound as cringe and out-of-touch as the majority of the training data (stale social media). Garbage in, garbage out.
> Yet the only difference between a FA and a TM is that
> the TM, unlike the FA, has paper and pencil.
> Think about it.
The analogy doesn't works if you really think about it. A TM with a finite tape is equivalent to an FA. The fundamental difference between a TM and an FA is that a TM has infinite space.
(Yes, I know I missed the point and am not very fun at parties.)
When I had started my PhD, I thought the writing part of a paper was just the last thing I needed to do to summarize my results, like a boring epilogue to the more exciting science. What surprised me was how much of the scientific process relied on my ability to convey my ideas to someone else. And to be able to do that you need clarity of mind, you need to have worked through multiple drafts to be able to get to your point as efficiently and clearly as possible. So many times I only discovered what I was actually researching during the writing part.
The problem with AI writing is that it makes people believe that writing is just writing and not a tool for thinking very deeply about the topic you are writing about. I am not completely opposed to AI assisted writing, but if I see AI writing, it’s telling me that the author tried to take a shortcut in their own thinking and it’s a good heuristic that the ideas will not be thought through enough to warrant my complete attention.
This happened to me recently. I just asked what the prompt was. I found it really tough to read AI words, not knowing the weight to put in each word. A almost gave it more credit than was due and responded in detail, before seeing the prompt and responding barely at all - equivalent to the thought put in.
Most of my projects are born out of scribbles on paper, system diagrams with boxes and little arrows to try to describe the system I want to build or my thought process written down like in this post.
When I get it on paper and everything feels right I start creating the codebase but I have to get it down first, feels like I remember it more after I save my thoughts to external paper storage.
I have over the decades tried every combination I can think up or have read about for designing things and I always land back in the same place, A4 5mm square pad (cheap but not the cheapest) and a really good (but not expensive) set of ballpoints in black/blue/red/green (and mostly it's black anyway).
There is something about the complete free form nature of pen and paper that makes me think better, I bought a nice ipad/pencil a few years ago thinking that would replicate it but it didn't, it was closer but not close.
If it's something I want to keep I just take a photo but vast majority of notes are transient anyway.
Exactly. I also use those colors.
I made a little system where blue diagrams are services I need to code and host like a nodejs server
green is stuff I need to host only like nginx, but no coding
red is external infra I can't control at all, like Anthropic's API.
And then I make drawings of how I connect them and in the end I just generate the code, so I go from pen and paper to claude code.
I could write an ode to the 5mm grid... Yellow Rhodia No. 16, I'm in love!
Agreed, I used to role my eyes when my professors asked me to do things like pseudocode (which I still don't do too much) but the act of writing an outline for the general structure of a program always helped me get over the initial hump of starting a new project.
It's an attractive thought, this comparative look at FA and TM. However it is misleading to an extent.
A Turing Machine's capabilities exceed the FA's because it has a 'store of knowledge'. It is both recording and reading, repeatedly. There is erasure, too. So if we're aspiring to TM-hood, the guidance seems to be write, and re-read (your own thoughts), and re-evaluate, and re-write. This process is subject to the halting problem. /g
Writing as a thinking tool has become sort of a meme these days.
And, yes, I also generally believe it’s a good thing to use it as a tool. I try to do use it as often as I can.
But… I think it’s also important to note that there are - like with almost anything - pitfalls and downsides. I rarely see them discussed and thus want to bring them up:
For highly analytical people, writing may become counterproductive. Especially, when it is used to continuously elaborate thoughts rather than to challenge assumptions, test hypotheses or reach decisions.
It can lead to over-analyzing or pseudo-rationalizing.
Ask your favorite LLM for scientific references like this one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40137068/
Writing is a good (and necessary) tool for thinking.
Not all writing needs to be published.
Beyond all this, there's also tailoring your message to your audience.
In sales, you might call this finding "words that work" or "the pain points". AI will not know how to do this because it's getting a vibe check of the room.
You cannot merely be a sensory part for the AI unless you want to sound as cringe and out-of-touch as the majority of the training data (stale social media). Garbage in, garbage out.
> Yet the only difference between a FA and a TM is that
> the TM, unlike the FA, has paper and pencil.
> Think about it.
The analogy doesn't works if you really think about it. A TM with a finite tape is equivalent to an FA. The fundamental difference between a TM and an FA is that a TM has infinite space.
(Yes, I know I missed the point and am not very fun at parties.)