Hello,
This is my first post on Lemmy! Glad to join the Fediverse.
I’d like to ask for advice from people who might have tips on how to do research and learn things without using AI.
I’m starting to get sick of it, it’s very addictive, and I must have spent over €50 developing crap on Cursor.
When I discovered AI in 2023, I was the first person at my high school to discover ChatGPT. In fact, I’d even been playing around with the OpenAI Playground before that.
But over time, I became addicted, it turned into a real drug. I didn’t even use search engines anymore, just ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Perplexity, DeepSeek, and so on…
Since I discovered this in high school, can you imagine what it’s like to discover this while you’re in the middle of a specialized digital studies program? Yeah, you don’t learn anything new, you gradually fall behind. I’ve lost some of my Python skills, like how to create classes and stuff like that, even though back in 2021 I built a client for downloading pirated games that I was pretty proud of. I’m really disappointed in myself about that.
Now, I’d like to relearn computer science, learn how to code, use Linux systems, and so on... but how? Not only have I regressed a bit, but what AI has really brought out in me is a reluctance to do things and a tendency to leave everything up to the AI.
Today I’m in college, and everyone uses it in graded group projects; no one follows the university’s guidelines, which require you to disclose when you’ve used AI. There is a climate of mistrust nowadays.
I’d love to hear your tips, how do you manage without AI, and how can I relearn to live without it? I’ve made up my mind: I don’t want to use it at all anymore, except as a translator (I use DeepL, which I don’t think is the same thing as a generative AI).
As has been pointed out, books used to be the primary sources. Magazines also, but most of them are gone now, or full of slop. Be cautious of newer books: many of them are slop. There are some very good blogs, forums and personal websites still, but finding them is more difficult, given the degradation of search engines and pervasiveness of slop. None the less, you can still find them and keep your own curated list of the ones you find relevant and helpful.
At college, you can focus on learning, rather than just getting the grades by whatever means possible. It will be hard. It always has been. Cheating isn't new, even if the means have changed with the advent of LLMs. But what others do doesn't stop you from actually learning. Talk to your professors. Most of them probably want to help you learn.
Most important is to understand and verify everything for yourself. Do your own research. Compare multiple sources. Learn to think critically and carefully. And practice. Put your ideas to the test. Many just want the grades, but there are others who want to learn. Find them and discuss with them.
LLMs are unreliable and fraught with legal, ethical, environmental and social problems, but they are not useless. Maybe it is best for you to avoid them entirely for a while, until you get yourself sorted and learning for yourself. But then you might consider using them, skeptically: always reading, understanding and verifying or correcting what they produce. There is misinformation everywhere. LLMs produce it more profusely and sometimes more convincingly than people, but you must learn to evaluate and exercise your own understanding and judgement, no matter the source.
Thanks for your comment. I would like to follow blogs but I don’t know how?
First challenge is to find ones worth following. Sometimes when you search for something in particular, a blog will appear in the results. Sometimes when you watch or read something else, a blog will be mentioned. Link aggregator sites like lemmy, hacker news (I like brutalist hacker news), lobste.rs and similar often have links to blog posts. If you look up interesting people, you may find their own blogs or blogs by people who write about them. Interviews often include links or references to the guests presence online, including their websites or blogs, if they have them. Keep your eyes open. Watch and read what is interesting to you. You will find them.
Once you find an interesting blog, they almost always have a way to subscribe. Usually, you provide your email address and get an email when there is new content or some have an RSS feed. Sometimes you have to create an account. Sometimes content is free. Sometimes a paid subscription. Often a combination: some free teasers and a subscription for full or more interesting or in-depth posts.