11 ms·

AI's Biggest Threat: Young People Who Can't Think

48 points by miles 1y ago

Terr_ 1y ago
https://archive.ph/zurJt https://archive.ph/zurJt
smcleod 1y ago
I'd argue that a huge portion of the working population have for a long time exhibited an inability to think - probably in part due to the meaningless, widget churning work they're tasked with - I don't think that'll change, however being empowered to learn and try things beyond your individual grasp by leveraging AI as for example a coding parter can unlock whole new ways of thinking in domains they'd otherwise not have the time to investigate. See also https://smcleod.net/2025/03/the-democratisation-paradox-what-history-teaches-us-about-ai/ https://smcleod.net/2025/03/the-democratisation-paradox-what... Watch out horses! The motorised carriage is going to do away with your ability to gallop!
- add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
  Nothing convinces me of an impending thought crisis than defenses of AI centering around comparisons to calculators or cars. The average person didn't take freedom from manual long division to unlock whole new ways of mastering math, they stopped doing math at the grocery store and became docile enough to allow the rise of modern consumer economics, Uber, Doordash, Klarna. And I don't know what invoking the obsolescence of horses is supposed to achieve. Yes, there are fewer horses for roles today. No, the remaining horse population hasn't been uplifted to whole new ways of thinking about labor and transportation. (I'm probably leaving myself open to a counter that today there are many horses living lives of leisure as pets.) You're not going to find a sufficient historical analogue to general thought being the skill we no longer have to practice, you have to engage in new thought about the qualitative difference of this situation.
  - Terr_ 1y ago
    > comparisons to calculators Yeah, the current LLM dilemma isn't really analogous. Offloading a task like multiplying two numbers is (A) safely reliable and (B) isn't delegating planning or decision-making. > The average person [...] stopped doing math at the grocery store and became docile enough to allow the rise of modern consumer economics, Uber, Doordash, Klarna. Disagree on this one: Wasteful spending by consumers (and vendors encouraging it) is a very old problem, much older than calculators or any withering of daily algebra skills. If anything, people have better/faster capabilities to see the "big picture" of how much a service is ripping them off than ever before. I think a better explanation would be stuff like the psychological distance created when using digital payments (as opposed to cash or handwritten checks) and companies getting better tools for advertising/brain-hacking.
- bicepjai 1y ago
  >> Watch out horses! The motorised carriage is going to do away with your ability to gallop! Love the analogy. Gets your point across without much description needed
  - miles 1y ago
    https://old.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1likqr5/learn_to_use_ai_or_uh/ https://old.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1likqr5/learn_to_us...
- commandlinefan 1y ago
  More than just that, thinking looks just like "slacking" to people whose entire existence is dedicated to rooting out "slackers". Thinking can't be planned down to the hour months ahead of time in an Excel spreadsheet the way MBA's are taught that all worthwhile work should be.
nottorp 1y ago
> Another professor notes that AI papers are replete with “seemingly logical statements that are actually full of emptiness.” In my country we were calling this "wooden language" back when were under a communist dictatorship behind the iron curtain. Lots of words that are designed to avoid any responsability for anything. Now we're automating this.
- BeFlatXIII 1y ago
  That's why AI is so useful in a corporate setting. Internally, those are communist dictatorships, complete with faking results to look good and wealth accumulating in the hands of those who are more equal than the rest.
  - nottorp 1y ago
    Mmm dictatorships. Not necessarily communist. Pretty sure the fascists were the same, I just have no direct experience with them. Corporate "monthly celebrations" fall in the same category :)
    - andrekandre 1y ago
      > Corporate "monthly celebrations" fall in the same category :) are those the ones that are optional but with the implicit understanding that you will be dinged if you exercise that option?
      - nottorp 1y ago
        China did not invent the social credit :)
    - zem 1y ago
      ironically they are literally capitalist dictatorships, since the idea that owning a company should give you dictatorial control of everyone's work is held up as an ideal by capitalists
- thunkshift1 1y ago
pgryko 1y ago
What happens when AGI is able to think better than us? Will governments close schools and universities as its no longer economically useful?
- viralsink 1y ago
  It would be unethical not to have an AI life coach since your own decisions would be not optimal more often than not.
  - brador 1y ago
    The human decision maker still wins if you’re optimising your life for novelty.
    - zingababba 1y ago
      Or for spitefulness. Imagine having all of your decisions made by equations, sounds like hell. There would be a significant amount of people that do the exact opposite out of willfulness and spite.
      - viralsink 1y ago
        I guess there would be more communes that chose to live like the Amish. A new hippie movement.
  - Nasrudith 1y ago
    There is a fundamental philosophical error in that assumption. Goals are not set by sheer rationality but emotionally. Logic is a guide to the means to the end and to give wisdom about how well pursuing a given goal may work but it is ultimately the emotional which sets the drive. An AI life coach cannot guide you for if you would prefer having a large family, being part of a DINK couple, or remain single for the rest of your life. It can tell you the odds of success of living off of a band are low and to prepare backup plans,and that being a chartered accountant is a more reliable source of income but it cannot tell you what the right decision is to attempt.
joenot443 1y ago
> Another professor notes that AI papers are replete with “seemingly logical statements that are actually full of emptiness.” A depressing thought is that students are incapable of discerning such intellectual vapor because their heads are empty. This is depressing, indeed. I think this type of empty-headedness has been growing for a while and isn't just a result of AI, I think it's a result of people generally not having a well-tuned mental barometer for what makes for strong writing. I think if you didn't read much as a young person, the sort of grammatically-sound and calmly-smug prose that GPT produces probably passes as "good" writing because it has all of the characteristics you remember that good writing must possess. If I may.. > Summarizing paragraphs must begin with strong statements. References can be made to previous points, perhaps acknowledge weaknesses, but the main structure remains the same. Our writing is confident, familiar, and satisfied - just like writing should be. Unfortunately, I think this is similar to someone growing used to "good" meals from Cheesecake Factory and allowing that to become their reference point for fine dining. All the pieces are there, nothing about it is distinctly "wrong", but something feels off. I don't pretend to have a solution.
- mistrial9 1y ago
  your reaction to this information is also a choice! instead of deriding the lack of effort or insight by the masses, instead a choice is to value and highlight real value in intellectual work.. it is hard work! (human) editors of value ought to be paid ! industrialization of intellectual work has consequences, agree
johnea 1y ago
AI's Second Biggest Threat: Old People Who Can't Think
- eszed 1y ago
  Going by my older relatives, that has already been achieved.
paradox242 1y ago
They "tempt" us into cognitive offloading? That is just about the entire value proposition.
- dmonitor 1y ago
  Yes, that is how temptations tend to work. The implication is that the cognitive offloading is bad for you in the long term.
dyauspitr 1y ago
Oh I definitely find my brain resisting the process of writing a new document from scratch. It’s just so much easier to have ChatGPT spit out the initial version and then refine it from there. I’m still definitely providing value with no decrease in the quality of my output so I’m counting on my past knowledge + ChatGPT to get me through my career but I weep for the next generation.

48 points by miles 1y ago

https://archive.ph/zurJt https://archive.ph/zurJt

I'd argue that a huge portion of the working population have for a long time exhibited an inability to think - probably in part due to the meaningless, widget churning work they're tasked with - I don't think that'll change, however being empowered to learn and try things beyond your individual grasp by leveraging AI as for example a coding parter can unlock whole new ways of thinking in domains they'd otherwise not have the time to investigate. See also https://smcleod.net/2025/03/the-democratisation-paradox-what-history-teaches-us-about-ai/ https://smcleod.net/2025/03/the-democratisation-paradox-what... Watch out horses! The motorised carriage is going to do away with your ability to gallop!

add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
Nothing convinces me of an impending thought crisis than defenses of AI centering around comparisons to calculators or cars. The average person didn't take freedom from manual long division to unlock whole new ways of mastering math, they stopped doing math at the grocery store and became docile enough to allow the rise of modern consumer economics, Uber, Doordash, Klarna. And I don't know what invoking the obsolescence of horses is supposed to achieve. Yes, there are fewer horses for roles today. No, the remaining horse population hasn't been uplifted to whole new ways of thinking about labor and transportation. (I'm probably leaving myself open to a counter that today there are many horses living lives of leisure as pets.) You're not going to find a sufficient historical analogue to general thought being the skill we no longer have to practice, you have to engage in new thought about the qualitative difference of this situation.
- Terr_ 1y ago
  > comparisons to calculators Yeah, the current LLM dilemma isn't really analogous. Offloading a task like multiplying two numbers is (A) safely reliable and (B) isn't delegating planning or decision-making. > The average person [...] stopped doing math at the grocery store and became docile enough to allow the rise of modern consumer economics, Uber, Doordash, Klarna. Disagree on this one: Wasteful spending by consumers (and vendors encouraging it) is a very old problem, much older than calculators or any withering of daily algebra skills. If anything, people have better/faster capabilities to see the "big picture" of how much a service is ripping them off than ever before. I think a better explanation would be stuff like the psychological distance created when using digital payments (as opposed to cash or handwritten checks) and companies getting better tools for advertising/brain-hacking.
bicepjai 1y ago
>> Watch out horses! The motorised carriage is going to do away with your ability to gallop! Love the analogy. Gets your point across without much description needed
- miles 1y ago
  https://old.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1likqr5/learn_to_use_ai_or_uh/ https://old.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1likqr5/learn_to_us...
commandlinefan 1y ago
More than just that, thinking looks just like "slacking" to people whose entire existence is dedicated to rooting out "slackers". Thinking can't be planned down to the hour months ahead of time in an Excel spreadsheet the way MBA's are taught that all worthwhile work should be.

nottorp 1y ago

> Another professor notes that AI papers are replete with “seemingly logical statements that are actually full of emptiness.” In my country we were calling this "wooden language" back when were under a communist dictatorship behind the iron curtain. Lots of words that are designed to avoid any responsability for anything. Now we're automating this.

BeFlatXIII 1y ago
That's why AI is so useful in a corporate setting. Internally, those are communist dictatorships, complete with faking results to look good and wealth accumulating in the hands of those who are more equal than the rest.
- nottorp 1y ago
  Mmm dictatorships. Not necessarily communist. Pretty sure the fascists were the same, I just have no direct experience with them. Corporate "monthly celebrations" fall in the same category :)
  - andrekandre 1y ago
    > Corporate "monthly celebrations" fall in the same category :) are those the ones that are optional but with the implicit understanding that you will be dinged if you exercise that option?
    - nottorp 1y ago
      China did not invent the social credit :)
  - zem 1y ago
    ironically they are literally capitalist dictatorships, since the idea that owning a company should give you dictatorial control of everyone's work is held up as an ideal by capitalists
thunkshift1 1y ago

pgryko 1y ago

What happens when AGI is able to think better than us? Will governments close schools and universities as its no longer economically useful?

viralsink 1y ago
It would be unethical not to have an AI life coach since your own decisions would be not optimal more often than not.
- brador 1y ago
  The human decision maker still wins if you’re optimising your life for novelty.
  - zingababba 1y ago
    Or for spitefulness. Imagine having all of your decisions made by equations, sounds like hell. There would be a significant amount of people that do the exact opposite out of willfulness and spite.
    - viralsink 1y ago
      I guess there would be more communes that chose to live like the Amish. A new hippie movement.
- Nasrudith 1y ago
  There is a fundamental philosophical error in that assumption. Goals are not set by sheer rationality but emotionally. Logic is a guide to the means to the end and to give wisdom about how well pursuing a given goal may work but it is ultimately the emotional which sets the drive. An AI life coach cannot guide you for if you would prefer having a large family, being part of a DINK couple, or remain single for the rest of your life. It can tell you the odds of success of living off of a band are low and to prepare backup plans,and that being a chartered accountant is a more reliable source of income but it cannot tell you what the right decision is to attempt.

joenot443 1y ago

> Another professor notes that AI papers are replete with “seemingly logical statements that are actually full of emptiness.” A depressing thought is that students are incapable of discerning such intellectual vapor because their heads are empty. This is depressing, indeed. I think this type of empty-headedness has been growing for a while and isn't just a result of AI, I think it's a result of people generally not having a well-tuned mental barometer for what makes for strong writing. I think if you didn't read much as a young person, the sort of grammatically-sound and calmly-smug prose that GPT produces probably passes as "good" writing because it has all of the characteristics you remember that good writing must possess. If I may.. > Summarizing paragraphs must begin with strong statements. References can be made to previous points, perhaps acknowledge weaknesses, but the main structure remains the same. Our writing is confident, familiar, and satisfied - just like writing should be. Unfortunately, I think this is similar to someone growing used to "good" meals from Cheesecake Factory and allowing that to become their reference point for fine dining. All the pieces are there, nothing about it is distinctly "wrong", but something feels off. I don't pretend to have a solution.

mistrial9 1y ago
your reaction to this information is also a choice! instead of deriding the lack of effort or insight by the masses, instead a choice is to value and highlight real value in intellectual work.. it is hard work! (human) editors of value ought to be paid ! industrialization of intellectual work has consequences, agree

johnea 1y ago

AI's Second Biggest Threat: Old People Who Can't Think

eszed 1y ago
Going by my older relatives, that has already been achieved.

paradox242 1y ago

They "tempt" us into cognitive offloading? That is just about the entire value proposition.

dmonitor 1y ago
Yes, that is how temptations tend to work. The implication is that the cognitive offloading is bad for you in the long term.

dyauspitr 1y ago

Oh I definitely find my brain resisting the process of writing a new document from scratch. It’s just so much easier to have ChatGPT spit out the initial version and then refine it from there. I’m still definitely providing value with no decrease in the quality of my output so I’m counting on my past knowledge + ChatGPT to get me through my career but I weep for the next generation.