I think AI as a tool versus AI as a product are different. Even in coding you can see it with tab completion/agents v vibe coding. It's a spectrum and people are trying to find their personal divider on it. Additionally there are those out there that decry anything involving AI as heresy. (no thinking machines!)
This is exactly the sort of refusal to comprehend so that you can get in an "um, ackshually" that the op is talking about. He's quoting a line from a book as a metaphor for a concept the book illustrates well.
You see someone who you think has missed a larger point, and all you can muster as a reply is a vague jab and unexplained reference? Do you not see the irony? Your whole comment is an “um, ackshually”, the very thing you are decrying.
I didn’t enjoy Dune, by the way. No shade on those who did, of course, but I couldn’t bring myself to finish it.
If you think there’s something there, explain your point. Make an argument. Maybe I have misunderstood something and will correct my thinking, or maybe you have misunderstood and will correct yours. But as it is, I don’t see your comment as providing any value to the discussion. It’s the equivalent of a hit and run, meant to insult the other person while remaining uncommitted enough to shield yourself from criticism.
It's an old saying. The ability for submarines to move through water has nothing to do with swimming, and AIs ability to do generate content has nothing to do with thinking.
The quote (from Dijkstra) is that asking whether machines think is as uninteresting as asking whether submarines swim. He's not saying machines don't think, he's saying it's a pointless thing to argue about - an opinion about whether AIs think is an opinion about word usage, not about AIs.
Are you hitting tab because it’s what you were about to type, or did it “generate” something you don’t understand? Seems a personalized distinguisher to me.
