this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2025
131 points (79.6% liked)

Ask Lemmy

34763 readers
1509 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 6 points 3 hours ago

“AI” as in the common LLMs that most people think of doesn’t remember anything new for us and doesn’t invent anything new.

The best it can offer is a mathematical chance to make an inference that we might not have already, based on whatever it was trained on. It’s a dice roll on insight, and the house always wins.

[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago

Okay, but its also much rarer to get lost and stranded with no way to get help anymore. You really have to go out of your way to be completely isolated.

[–] Brutticus@midwest.social 11 points 6 hours ago

Like, people used rely Rolodex's and calendars to remember phone numbers and birthdays, respectively. In other words, we used to write things down. When I left Facebook, I did literally go through their calendar and write down all my friends birthdays.

Navigation is a skill you have to learn. When I was an EMT, my FTO drilled the basics in to me. I can find my way to a city Ive never been, but I still use a GPS to find a specific place off the major cross streets. People used to give more advice with the destination, now they just say, "oh, come to this XXXX address place" because they assume youll be using a GPS, and the skill to describe "its off of this road" is both becoming lost, and a generational disconnect.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 4 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

The way it’s going…

AI: Happy Birthday! Other notable people who share your birthday: Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Charlie Kirk, and many more great historical figures you should hope to praise!

[–] incompetent@programming.dev 1 points 5 hours ago

Sounds like something Grok would say.

[–] Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

How to be human

[–] ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 15 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

With the movie, people will forget how to read.

With the printing press, people will forget how to write.

With the book, people will forget how to remember.

With writing, people will forget how to talk.

[–] Maroon@lemmy.world -2 points 8 hours ago
[–] RicoRodriguez42@lemmy.world 26 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

With phone books, we don't memorize phone numbers any more, we rely on drawn maps to tell us where to go and calendars reminds us of birthdays. What else will we stop remembering once ~~AI~~ paper remembers everything for us?

[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 8 hours ago

With phone books we don't memorise phone numbers, but we still have to read them a dial them and after a few times we don't need to look them up anymore. With drawn map we still have to look around and make sure we are correct intersection.

They don't prevent us from remembering stuff, it's the things that we used to do that helped us to remember and we don't do anymore.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 10 points 11 hours ago

I remember the new emergency number. It's 01189998819991197253

[–] LettyWhiterock@lemmy.world 13 points 14 hours ago (1 children)
[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 4 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

People keeping up with organizations, family and friends who refuse to use stuff like Signal.

The trick is not to follow assholes, switch off news and patch it with Revanced.

[–] BurgerBaron@piefed.social 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

I still remember my childhood home phone number, but I don't need to memorise any phone number anymore. I still have them archived for everyone I care to know in a cloud synced joplin file. That also includes birthdays. I can barely remember my own let alone other peoples.

GPS I'd be fucked without. Aphantasia and a horrible sense of direction. I'm glad I missed the paper map era. I only know the routes I have driven multiple times, so a large portion of the core city and satellite towns.

I don't use Facebook at all. Deleted that shit in 2014.

Don't use AI very often outside of questions where a traditional web search isn't or is no longer viable due to enshittification and gameified results. Begrudgingly, and I check the sources. No trusting a sanitized corporate sycophant bot. But it's not like those traditional web searches weren't buried in misinfo, disinfo, or AI spam articles either. People seem to willfully not acknowledge that.

Edit: I also read paper books and go to my local library.

[–] natecox@programming.dev 163 points 21 hours ago (13 children)

Yeah it’s way worse than when we used a Rolodex to remember phone numbers, kept a map book in the dash, and took 20 minutes to transfer birthdays from last years calendar to this years.

I am about as anti-AI as one can get, but this is a bit silly.

[–] jpablo68 88 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Every newspaper there is also chock full of ads.

Don’t know why people think it’s a new thing. They were pretty intrusive for the time as well.

“Continued on page 9” is code for “people paid a lot of money for the ads on page 8”

[–] Squirrelsdrivemenuts@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Wait, people copied birthdays over each year? We just had one normal yearly calendar and one special birthday calendar that could be used for multiple years. I still use the birthday calendar which has accumulated more names of people I don't speak to anymore or have died than actual living friends and relatives.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (22 children)

No don't you dare stop the circlejerk! /s

But seriously phone numbers were broken into chunks of three to four digits to even make them something we could remember. Is it so terrible my brain has more space to remember other things instead of strings of numbers?

load more comments (22 replies)
load more comments (10 replies)
[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (2 children)

We didn't stop remembering phone numbers because our phones remembers them for us, we stopped remembering numbers because we stopped dialing them, back then there was this joke about not knowing your own number, why should I know my own number? I never call myself, and when I do I always get a busy signal.
We don't even get to see the numbers, we have to make an extra effort to memorise numbers when we used to just know them after dialing them every day.

With GPS is something similar, we have trouble remembering how to get from point A to point B because GPS substituted landmarks. We turn right when the GPS says so, so we stopped looking for the gas station, the bus stop or the road sign. Again, we need to make an extra effort to pay attention to our surroundings to know when to turn right next time we come without a GPS when before that was just how you learned to get to places.
At least for me this is very obvious in video games, every time I deactivate the minimap I don't know how to get anywhere and I start to notice how rich some of the environments are when I stop having one eye fixed in the corner following the yellow line.

So with AI I don't know, probably won't be what it does for us but what we stop doing because of that.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 2 points 11 hours ago

You don't know your own number? The amount of times I have had to input it/write it down, it's good to memorise

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

If your don't know your own number, how are you going to give it to someone? Of course people have always known their own number. I still remember mine from 50 years ago.

[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

But why do I remember my own number? Because Igive it to people, I write it down in all sort of forms and every time I register somewhere. I actively use the actual number all the time.
I have a work phone that I only use at work, everyone that needs to have that number already have it and I don't use it for anything else. I have no idea what it is its number since I never had to call to it or give it to anyone.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 50 points 21 hours ago (7 children)

https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1446354

The invention of writing will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom.

Socrates

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] YeahIgotskills2@lemmy.world 0 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

How to disagree with people politically but remain friends

[–] ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world 8 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

While this is an understandable sentiment, expressing this today means different things than 10 years ago.

Should we "remain friends" with those that support an administration that deports people to foreign countries without trial? Is it "just politics" when people are ok with a president that is attacking free speech and freedom of the press? With a president deploying the military to cities with Democrat mayors? I don't think so. We're talking about freedom and the future of our country. If you support such corruption and destruction of our democracy, we can't be friends.

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world -2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (2 children)

most people don't care about any of that. they are more focused on the local sports team, their schedule at work, their kids sports games and a million other things.

i mean you can grandstand all you want about it... but it won't ever change those people's minds. they have other shit to worry about that federal politics, which is largely background noise to them.

your error is thinking other people think about politics like you do. they don't. they don't think about it at all.

[–] thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago

The majority of Germans in the late 1930's weren't members of the Nazi party either. The majority of Germans in fact claimed being either unaware or opposed to what the Nazi regime did. Did the tell the truth? I'm inclined to believe so. Does being unaware/laying low absolve them of any and all crimes committed by the Nazi government? That's more of an open question.

Actively voting for a government that commits crimes because you don't care sufficiently about politics does not absolve you of responsibility for those crimes. Once you actively enable a fascist government you are complicit in the crimes it commits.

[–] barooboodoo@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Apparently showing the tiniest speck of empathy is grandstanding now.

[–] Perspectivist@feddit.uk 7 points 15 hours ago

I never memorized those. We had a of the most common phone numbers on the wall next to the phone. Birthdays I didn't need to remember either because the date was in the invitation card.

Navigation is something I'm way worse than my dad for example, I'll give you that. I'll rely on GPS even when I know how to get to my destination because I always tend to drive the same routes and sometimes there is a much shorter one that I didn't even think of.

[–] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 38 points 21 hours ago (8 children)

I memorize important numbers

I don't use GPS after the first time going to a place and remember my routes

Facebook? what... ? people actually use that?

I won't use AI..my information stays with me, in my mind when I need it. I can't rely on others, I won't rely on computers to be there when I need it and that most certainly applies to ai

[–] Monument@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I remember the routes, too, but you don’t have random road congestion or construction that sometimes necessitates alternative routes? It’s like having a psychic friend that tells you when the most direct route is fucked.

[–] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

sure, but east is still easy. I don't mind heavy traffic, or needing detours. I'm patient and hardly even in a rush. if I'm late for something, meh..

[–] Monument@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 7 hours ago

In my community, it seems the local, state, federal government and local utilities are all competing to shut down as much of roads as possible, so there’s always a bunch of weird diversions to traffic. An unfortunate side-effect of underinvestment in infrastructure until the need is absolutely dire.

Because the crews don’t get much work done in the winter, they tend to concentrate all their work on warmer months, which exacerbates the issue.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] _cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 10 points 17 hours ago

I memorize the phone numbers of my family, but why would anyone memorize the phone numbers of the rest of their contacts? Nobody did that before we got address books in our phones. That's literally why phone books existed.

[–] shai_hulud@lemmy.world 7 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Who's we?

I still remember the fucking IP address of the main local (member of a three way cluster) data server for a bank that folded over 15 years ago.

2102231063 (used to be area code 512) was the back/kitchen phone of the firehouse my dad worked at. He retired in '93 and died in 2011.

And I almost never need directions to a place I've been once.

I don't forget faces but fuck do I forget names even when I repeat them or use other memory techniques.

I might be neurologically a little divergent, but I don't know, and make no assumptions.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›