Auto-generated description: A mountain bike with large tires and a front light is parked on a dirt path surrounded by autumn trees.

I agree with this clear-eyed metaphor from Greg Wilson, riffing off Steve Jobs' famous quotation that computers are “bicycles for the mind”. It’s certainly been my experience that LLMs have enabled me to do things that I otherwise wouldn’t have done! Check out the ‘Tools’ section of my Dynamic Skillset website, for example. And that doesn’t even list everything…

[I]f a computer is a bicycle for the mind, then LLMs are like e-bikes. They let a lot of people go distances and tackle hills that they couldn’t before, and they’re better for all of us than cars, but they’re a menace to both pedestrians and traditional cyclists, more harmful to the environment than what they’re replacing, and have given companies yet another way to hollow out local businesses. (Neighborhood restaurants know that cheap delivery services are killing them slowly, but if they don’t play, they’ll just die more quickly.)

Source: Third Bit

Image: Himiway Bikes