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Why not both? After the collapse of civilization, as long as you can maintain the computer running, you could educate the next generation as soon as they could write. Maybe they will bypass the local agent as they learn their way into the library, to save energy.

Consider they won't have access to the plentiful practice opportunities we have now, most resources would have to be spent with a practical goal.



A book is a lot more of a sure bet than you maintaining a computer. We have ancient books today that have survived several civilization collapses.

Survival implies that energy would definitely be a very limited resource. Using it to replace knowledge is just... I can't describe it even. Why not just learn it on our own and keep a small guidebook in your backpack. Our overrelience on computers and now LLMs, even for basic life-saving knowledge is simply our way of going the way of the dodo... I use frontier models at work, I definitely get more done. However I will never use it as a replacement of my own knowledge.

lots of us have solar cells these days, so energy isn't going to be such a limiting factor

> After the collapse of civilization, as long as you can maintain the computer running ...

One of these situations prohibits the other.


Nvidia GPUs in the post-apocalyptic radioactive barrens are going to be stupid pricey.

Both. Both is good.

A field guide to foraging for edible mushrooms will probably be more practical than naïve use of an LLM: “can I eat this mushroom?” is an exercise in trust that I will maybe never be comfortable with.

But “how do I effectively forage for edible mushrooms” is a great stepping stone.




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