Quickly, ask AI how to improve or practice critical thinking skills!
Chat GPT et al; “To improve your critical thinking skills you should rely completely on AI.”
That sounds right. Lemme ask Gemini and DeepSink just in case.
“Deepsink” lmao sounds like some sink cleaner brand
Improving your critical thinking skills is a process that involves learning new techniques, practicing them regularly, and reflecting on your thought processes. Here’s a comprehensive approach:
1. Build a Foundation in Logic and Reasoning
• Study basic logic: Familiarize yourself with formal and informal logic (e.g., learning about common fallacies, syllogisms, and deductive vs. inductive reasoning). This forms the groundwork for assessing arguments objectively.
• Learn structured methods: Books and online courses on critical thinking (such as Lewis Vaughn’s texts) provide a systematic introduction to these concepts.
2. Practice Socratic Questioning
• Ask open-ended questions: Challenge assumptions by repeatedly asking “why†and “how†to uncover underlying beliefs and evidence.
• Reflect on responses: This method helps you clarify your own reasoning and discover alternative viewpoints.
3. Engage in Reflective Practice
• Keep a journal: Write about decisions, problems, or debates you’ve had. Reflect on what went well, where you might have been biased, and what could be improved.
• Use structured reflection models: Approaches like Gibbs’ reflective cycle guide you through describing an experience, analyzing it, and planning improvements.
4. Use Structured Frameworks
• Follow multi-step processes: For example, the Asana article “How to build your critical thinking skills in 7 steps†suggests: identify the problem, gather information, analyze data, consider alternatives, draw conclusions, communicate solutions, and then reflect on the process.
• Experiment with frameworks like Six Thinking Hats: This method helps you view issues from different angles (facts, emotions, positives, negatives, creativity, and process control) by “wearing†a different metaphorical hat for each perspective.
5. Read Widely and Critically
• Expose yourself to diverse perspectives: Reading quality journalism (e.g., The Economist, FT) or academic articles forces you to analyze arguments, recognize biases, and evaluate evidence.
• Practice lateral reading: Verify information by consulting multiple sources and questioning the credibility of each.
6. Participate in Discussions and Debates
• Engage with peers: Whether through formal debates, classroom discussions, or online forums, articulating your views and defending them against criticism deepens your reasoning.
• Embrace feedback: Learn to view criticism as an opportunity to refine your thought process rather than a personal attack.
7. Apply Critical Thinking to Real-World Problems
• Experiment in everyday scenarios: Use critical thinking when making decisions—such as planning your day, solving work problems, or evaluating news stories.
• Practice with “what-if†scenarios: This helps build your ability to foresee consequences and assess risks (as noted by Harvard Business’s discussion on avoiding the urgency trap).
8. Develop a Habit of Continuous Learning
• Set aside regular “mental workout†time: Like scheduled exercise, devote time to tackling complex questions without distractions.
• Reflect on your biases and update your beliefs: Over time, becoming aware of and adjusting for your cognitive biases will improve your judgment.
By integrating these strategies into your daily routine, you can gradually sharpen your critical thinking abilities. Remember, the key is consistency and the willingness to challenge your own assumptions continually.
Happy thinking!
The one thing that I learned when talking to chatGPT or any other AI on a technical subject is you have to ask the AI to cite its sources. Because AIs can absolutely bullshit without knowing it, and asking for the sources is critical to double checking.
I’ve found questions about niche tools tend to get worse answers. I was asking if some stuff about jpackage and it couldn’t give me any working suggestions or correct information. Stuff I’ve asked about Docker was much better.
The ability of AI to write things with lots of boilerplate like Kubernetes manifests is astounding. It gets me 90-95% of the way there and saves me about 50% of my development time. I still have to understand the result before deployment because I’m not going to blindly deploy something that AI wrote and it rarely works without modifications, but it definitely cuts my development time significantly.
Microsoft LLM whatever the name is gives sources, or at least it did to me yesterday.
I consider myself very average, and all my average interactions with AI have been abysmal failures that are hilariously wrong. I invested time and money into trying various models to help me with data analysis work, and they can’t even do basic math or summaries of a PDF and the data contained within.
I was impressed with how good the things are at interpreting human fiction, jokes, writing and feelings. Which is really weird, in the context of our perceptions of what AI will be like, it’s the exact opposite. The first AI’s aren’t emotionless robots, they’re whiny, inaccurate, delusional and unpredictable bitches. That alone is worth the price of admission for the humor and silliness of it all, but certainly not worth upending society over, it’s still just a huge novelty.
It makes HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyessy seem realistic. In the movie he is a highly technical AI but doesn’t understand the implications of what he wants to do. He sees Dave as a detriment to the mission and it can be better accomplished without him… not stopping to think about the implications of what he is doing.
I mean, leave it up the one of the greatest creative minds of all time to predict that our AI will be unpredictable and emotional. The man invented the communication satellite and wrote franchises that are still being lined up to make into major hollywood releases half a century later.
I’ve only used it to write cover letters for me. I tried to also use it to write some code but it would just cycle through the same 5 wrong solutions it could think of, telling me “I’ve fixed the problem now”
Sounds a bit bogus to call this a causation. Much more likely that people who are more gullible in general also believe AI whatever it says.
Seriously, ask AI about anything you have expert knowledge in. It’s laughable sometimes… However you need to know, to know it’s wrong. At face value, if you have no expertise it sounds entirely plausible, however the details can be shockingly incorrect. Do not trust it implicitly about anything.
This isn’t a profound extrapolation. It’s akin to saying “Kids who cheat on the exam do worse in practical skills tests than those that read the material and did the homework.” Or “kids who watch TV lack the reading skills of kids who read books”.
Asking something else to do your mental labor for you means never developing your brain muscle to do the work on its own. By contrast, regularly exercising the brain muscle yields better long term mental fitness and intuitive skills.
This isn’t predicated on the gullibility of the practitioner. The lack of mental exercise produces gullibility.
Its just not something particular to AI. If you use any kind of 3rd party analysis in lieu of personal interrogation, you’re going to suffer in your capacity for future inquiry.
All tools can be abused tbh. Before chatgpt was a thing, we called those programmers the StackOverflow kids, copy the first answer and hope for the best memes.
After searching for a solution a bit and not finding jack shit, asking a llm about some specific API thing or simple implementation example so you can extrapolate it into your complex code and confirm what it does reading the docs, both enriches the mind and you learn new techniques for the future.
Good programmers do what I described, bad programmers copy and run without reading. It’s just like SO kids.
Well thank goodness that Microsoft isn’t pushing AI on us as hard as it can, via every channel that it can.
Learning how to evade and disable AI is becoming a critical thinking skill unto itself. Feels a bit like how I’ve had to learn to navigate around advertisements and other intrusive 3rd party interruptions while using online services.
Well at least they communicate such findings openly and don’t try to hide them. Other than ExxonMobil who saw global warming coming due to internal studies since the 1970s and tried to hide or dispute it, because it was bad for business.
Unless you suffer from ADHD with object permanence issues, then in that case you can go fuck yourself.
How many phone numbers do you know off of the top of your head?
In the 90s, my mother could rattle off 20 or more.
But they’re all in her phone now. Are luddites going to start abandoning phones because they’re losing the ability to remember phone numbers? No, of course not.
Either way, these fancy prediction engines have better critical thinking skills than most of the flesh and bone people I meet every day to begin with. The world might actually be smarter on average if they didn’t open their mouths.
Something something… Only phone number I remember is your mother’s phone number (Implying that is for when I’m calling her to arrange a session of sexual intercourse, that she willingly and enthusiastically participates in).
Memorization is not the same thing as critical thinking.
A well designed test will freely give you an equation sheet or even allow a cheat sheet.
Memorization is not the same thing as critical thinking.
A library of internalized axioms is necessary for efficient critical thinking. You can’t just turn yourself into a Chinese Room of analysis.
A well designed test will freely give you an equation sheet or even allow a cheat sheet.
Certain questions are phrased to force the reader to pluck out and categorize bits of information, to implement complex iterations of simple formulae, and to perform long-form calculations accurately without regard to the formulae themselves.
But for elementary skills, you’re often challenging the individual to retain basic facts and figures. Internalizing your multiplication tables can serve as a heuristic that’s quicker than doing simple sums in your head. Knowing the basic physics formulae - your F = ma, ρ=m/V, f= V/λ etc - can give you a broader understanding of the physical world.
If all you know how to do is search for answers to basic questions, you’re slowing down your ability to process new information and recognize patterns or predictive signals in a timely manner.
I agree with all of this. My comment is meant to refute the implication that not needing to memorize phone numbers is somehow analogous to critical thinking. And yes, internalized axioms are necessary, but largely the core element is memorizing how these axioms are used, not necessarily their rote text.
You’re right it’s not the same thing as critical thinking, but it is a skill we’ve lost. How many skills have we lost throughout history due to machines and manufacturing?
This is the same tale over and over again - these people weren’t using critical thinking to begin with if they were trusting a prediction engine with their tasks.
I think “deliberately suppressed” is different than lost.
When was the last time you did math without a calculator?
Calculators also don’t think critically.
Mostly just this one:
0118 999 881 999 119 725 3
But even back when we only had landed lines, I could barely remember my own phone number. I didn’t think it’s a good measure.
No way!
Duh?
Buh?
Good thing most Americans already don’t possess those!
i use my thinking skills to tell the LLM to quit fucking up and try again or I’m gonna fire his ass
Keep it on its toes… Ask chatgpt, then copy paste the answer and ask perplexity why that’s wrong and go back and forth…human, AI, Human, AI…until you get a satisfactory answer.
i like to say “are you sure you even understand this? do you know what you’re doing or do i need to spell it out for you?!”
No shit.
Corporations and politicians: “oh great news everyone… It worked. Time to kick off phase 2…”
- Replace all the water trump wasted in California with brawndo
- Sell mortgages for eggs, but call them patriot pods
- Welcome to Costco, I love you
- All medicine replaced with raw milk enemas
- Handjobs at Starbucks
- Ow my balls, Tuesdays this fall on CBS
- Chocolate rations have gone up from 10 to 6
- All government vehicles are cybertrucks
- trump nft cartoons on all USD, incest legal, Ivanka new first lady.
- Public executions on pay per view, lowered into deep fried turkey fryer on white house lawn, your meat is then mixed in with the other mechanically separated protein on the Tyson foods processing line (run exclusively by 3rd graders) and packaged without distinction on label.
- FDA doesn’t inspect food or drugs. Everything approved and officially change acronym to F(uck You) D(umb) A(ss)
- Handjobs at Starbucks
Well that’s just solid policy right there, cum on.
It would wake me up more than coffee that’s for sure
Bullet point 3 was my single issue vote
I love how you mix in the Idiocracy quotes :D
I hate how it just seems to slide in.
A savvy consumer, glad you mentioned. Felt better than hitting it on the nose.
that “ow, my balls” reference caught me off-guard
The same could be said about people who search for answers anywhere on the internet, or even the world, and don’t have some level of skepticism about their sources of information.
It’s more like, not having critical thinking skills perpetuates a lack of critical thinking skills.
Yeah, if you repeated this test with the person having access to a stack exchange or not you’d see the same results. Not much difference between someone mindlessly copying an answer from stack overflow vs copying it from AI. Both lead to more homogeneous answers and lower critical thinking skills.
Copying isn’t the same as using your brain to form logical conclusions. Instead your taking someone else’s wild interpretation, research, study, and blindly copying it as fact. That lowers critical thinking because your not thinking at all. Bad information is always bad no matter how far it spreads. Incomplete info is no different.
I’d agree that anybody who just takes the first answer offered them by any means as fact would have the same results as this study.
