4 ms·

I am sure many smokers in the 1950s also saw the health benefits of tobacco, that they were very happy to experience the increased energy after a smoke and coul

I am sure many smokers in the 1950s also saw the health benefits of tobacco, that they were very happy to experience the increased energy after a smoke and could get more done as a result. I‘m pretty sure none of them felt their lungs and throats deteriorating either. Likewise, you may not feel like AI is de-skilling your brain. But it probably is. We don‘t have the research (yet) that AI is addictive and causes brain atrophy, but all the evidence is certainly pointing that way, the same way the evidence were pointing that way about tobacco in the 1950s. My only hope is that it doesn’t take us another 2 decades to prove the obvious.

kragen 15d ago
Oh, I definitely feel a strong pull toward the low-effort path of just letting the AI do everything. It's so much better than I am at writing code, after all! This code it wrote for me is beautiful! But it makes terrible mistakes constantly, and when I'm reduced to pleading with it to check whether it's made mistakes, basically there is no hope. And, of course, it would put me in the Homer Simpson position of declining to get up and walk just because there's a motorized wheelchair at hand.
PorciiVorbesc 15d ago
>Likewise, you may not feel like AI is de-skilling your brain. But it probably is. It is, but why is that a problem? Moving from physical labor on the farm, factory or construction site to sedentary work and lifestyles would also atrophy our muscles so now we pursue physical activities we actually enjoy like gym and sports instead of hanging on to those dangerous and strenuous physical labor jobs just to stay in shape. Similarly, you will use the AI to churn through the repetitive mundane tasks the AI can do, and then work your brain on the activities you actually enjoy. Now if you choose to not exercise your brain and dumb yourself down the same way sedentary people don't exercise their bodies and get obese, then I guess that's on you, but we can't force the world to technologically regress just because some people are lazy and don't exercise, the same way we haven't forced construction workers to use pickaxes instead of machinery to tear up a road just to make sure they stay in shape and don't get too fat from sitting in their air conditioned excavators.
- zero_shift 15d ago
  > It is, but why is that a problem? I used to have several good answers, but now I use Claude for everything, I can't remember any
- johnnyanmac 15d ago
  >then work your brain on the activities you actually enjoy. 1. As seen in this coountry, most people did not in fact "pursue physical activities they enjoyed". They got much less healthy and then the white collar machines started to churn their brains too. I do not see this ending any differently. 2. As many have noted (and has been known for decades pre-AI), getting more work done in a modern workplace does not reward you with more of your time back. It gives you more work and higher velocity plans. It may even end up compensating you less. There's only more benefit to this if you are your own boss, and so far a lot of those kinds of people are simply selling grifts, not truly disrupting the industry with newfound efficiencies. >but we can't force the world to technologically regress just because some people are lazy and don't exercise I didn't want to go too off topic, but since this is such a sticking point I need to make a big note about the US: most of the world is more sedentary than 100 years ago. But the obesity epidemic is mostly US-cerntric. Which shows that, while we can't force a diet, we can definitely regulate incentives. But the US chose not to. We had all kinds of initatives to try and regulate what we put in our food and what to subsidize. We instead said corporations can do whatever we want and subsidized chemicals that are heavily taxes or banned in many other western countries. I know that's a scary word for this community, but this analog of regulations can work here in AI as well. We don't need to ban AI (but I'm not opposed to it in primary schools), but we can shape policy to prevent "corporations can do whatever they want" yet again.
  - PorciiVorbesc 15d ago
    >we can definitely regulate incentives. We can't regulate incentives. Unless we can somehow go back to how the world was in the 1960s, the incentive today in a global competitive world economy, is to make more money than your economic rivals, otherwise if you only regulate yourself but if they don't, then they will economically dominate you in the long run and turn your government into their puppet, your country into their playground and your people in their sweatshop workers. It's economic neo-colonilism 2.0 electric boogaloo. Regulations only work if all players in the world adhere to them, but history has proven they don't. They expect everyone else to adhere to the rules and slow down so that they can get ahead of you. > But the US chose not to Smart. Then US can be the survivor in this global race. As someone in the EU I am aware of more top EU-born tech companies relocating their offices/R&D to the US than vice versa. > but we can shape policy to prevent "corporations can do whatever they want" yet again. I fully agree. But again, this will work if all major nations regulate AI equally, otherwise, AI corporations will move where they have more freedom.
fragmede 15d ago
De-skilling is too broad though. Or maybe not broad enough. I've been using GPS sat nav since it came out, in the Tomtom days. I don't know how to get around to places without a gps to spoon-feed me instructions. My ability to multiply two digit numbers in my head has totally atrophied since my younger years. I also don't know how to ride a horse or grow corn though. Or how to milk a cow or goat. Yet somehow I'm still (for now) able to put food on the table. I can tell you subtle differences between the output of Fable vs Opus, or Sol and Astra. I'm real good at Linux, and it made my career, but honestly Claude is better at it than I am, and it's relentless. I get tired and distracted easily. When people lose one of their senses, the other ones sharpen. Maybe. I have a couple of practices I do to sharpen my mind on memory and recall and cognition. You're right on the brain atrophy, but like the gym replaced manual labor, we should do the same for our minds.
- runarberg 15d ago
  The de-skilling of AI includes your ability to express your thoughts, to communicate your ideas, to come up with new ideas, and creative solutions, to converse with other people. This is an entirely different category then the ability to navigate on highways and city streets. Also worth noting is that your GPS has probably not de-skilled your navigation abilities when you walk or bike in your local area.
ndriscoll 15d ago
One thing I've learned in life is to accept that I'm in many ways an outlier, which means that even if the research is done, it frequently doesn't apply to me anyway. Like I wouldn't doubt that research could show that more time spent on youtube is inversely correlated with learning. But if you just use it to watch lectures or tutorials for some skill, obviously you will be an outlier. Or when "research shows that dieting doesn't work," obviously the result there is "research shows that most people don't maintain a healthy diet," and it shouldn't dissuade you from doing so. Choosing to do so anyway is what makes you the outlier. And so it will likely go with AI's effect on the brain. Most people will likely use it to avoid thinking, and the research will show it to be a disaster. A small group will use (or already is using) it to challenge them and expose them to new ideas. You can choose to be in the latter group if you'd like.
- johnnyanmac 15d ago
  >You can choose to be in the latter group if you'd like. And now you inherit the burden of proving you are "one of the good ones" after a mass amount of disappointment from the normal use case. I don't think the "it's okay, I'm different" methodology ever works out unless you can prove you are so utterly beyond the competition that you can't be ignored. But an outlier is just that. And as we see here, outliers cannot change society single-handedly. You at least need to be an outlier good enough to convince a lot of "normal" people that you are to their benefit and be willing to lead those "normal" people.
  - ndriscoll 15d ago
    You don't need to prove anything or lead anyone or change society. You have a tool in front of you that can help you achieve your goals or distract you from them. You decide how you want to use it. Just do your thing. > It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. Ralph Waldo Emerson
    - johnnyanmac 15d ago

kragen 15d ago

Oh, I definitely feel a strong pull toward the low-effort path of just letting the AI do everything. It's so much better than I am at writing code, after all! This code it wrote for me is beautiful! But it makes terrible mistakes constantly, and when I'm reduced to pleading with it to check whether it's made mistakes, basically there is no hope. And, of course, it would put me in the Homer Simpson position of declining to get up and walk just because there's a motorized wheelchair at hand.

PorciiVorbesc 15d ago

>Likewise, you may not feel like AI is de-skilling your brain. But it probably is. It is, but why is that a problem? Moving from physical labor on the farm, factory or construction site to sedentary work and lifestyles would also atrophy our muscles so now we pursue physical activities we actually enjoy like gym and sports instead of hanging on to those dangerous and strenuous physical labor jobs just to stay in shape. Similarly, you will use the AI to churn through the repetitive mundane tasks the AI can do, and then work your brain on the activities you actually enjoy. Now if you choose to not exercise your brain and dumb yourself down the same way sedentary people don't exercise their bodies and get obese, then I guess that's on you, but we can't force the world to technologically regress just because some people are lazy and don't exercise, the same way we haven't forced construction workers to use pickaxes instead of machinery to tear up a road just to make sure they stay in shape and don't get too fat from sitting in their air conditioned excavators.

zero_shift 15d ago
> It is, but why is that a problem? I used to have several good answers, but now I use Claude for everything, I can't remember any
johnnyanmac 15d ago
>then work your brain on the activities you actually enjoy. 1. As seen in this coountry, most people did not in fact "pursue physical activities they enjoyed". They got much less healthy and then the white collar machines started to churn their brains too. I do not see this ending any differently. 2. As many have noted (and has been known for decades pre-AI), getting more work done in a modern workplace does not reward you with more of your time back. It gives you more work and higher velocity plans. It may even end up compensating you less. There's only more benefit to this if you are your own boss, and so far a lot of those kinds of people are simply selling grifts, not truly disrupting the industry with newfound efficiencies. >but we can't force the world to technologically regress just because some people are lazy and don't exercise I didn't want to go too off topic, but since this is such a sticking point I need to make a big note about the US: most of the world is more sedentary than 100 years ago. But the obesity epidemic is mostly US-cerntric. Which shows that, while we can't force a diet, we can definitely regulate incentives. But the US chose not to. We had all kinds of initatives to try and regulate what we put in our food and what to subsidize. We instead said corporations can do whatever we want and subsidized chemicals that are heavily taxes or banned in many other western countries. I know that's a scary word for this community, but this analog of regulations can work here in AI as well. We don't need to ban AI (but I'm not opposed to it in primary schools), but we can shape policy to prevent "corporations can do whatever they want" yet again.
- PorciiVorbesc 15d ago
  >we can definitely regulate incentives. We can't regulate incentives. Unless we can somehow go back to how the world was in the 1960s, the incentive today in a global competitive world economy, is to make more money than your economic rivals, otherwise if you only regulate yourself but if they don't, then they will economically dominate you in the long run and turn your government into their puppet, your country into their playground and your people in their sweatshop workers. It's economic neo-colonilism 2.0 electric boogaloo. Regulations only work if all players in the world adhere to them, but history has proven they don't. They expect everyone else to adhere to the rules and slow down so that they can get ahead of you. > But the US chose not to Smart. Then US can be the survivor in this global race. As someone in the EU I am aware of more top EU-born tech companies relocating their offices/R&D to the US than vice versa. > but we can shape policy to prevent "corporations can do whatever they want" yet again. I fully agree. But again, this will work if all major nations regulate AI equally, otherwise, AI corporations will move where they have more freedom.

fragmede 15d ago

De-skilling is too broad though. Or maybe not broad enough. I've been using GPS sat nav since it came out, in the Tomtom days. I don't know how to get around to places without a gps to spoon-feed me instructions. My ability to multiply two digit numbers in my head has totally atrophied since my younger years. I also don't know how to ride a horse or grow corn though. Or how to milk a cow or goat. Yet somehow I'm still (for now) able to put food on the table. I can tell you subtle differences between the output of Fable vs Opus, or Sol and Astra. I'm real good at Linux, and it made my career, but honestly Claude is better at it than I am, and it's relentless. I get tired and distracted easily. When people lose one of their senses, the other ones sharpen. Maybe. I have a couple of practices I do to sharpen my mind on memory and recall and cognition. You're right on the brain atrophy, but like the gym replaced manual labor, we should do the same for our minds.

runarberg 15d ago
The de-skilling of AI includes your ability to express your thoughts, to communicate your ideas, to come up with new ideas, and creative solutions, to converse with other people. This is an entirely different category then the ability to navigate on highways and city streets. Also worth noting is that your GPS has probably not de-skilled your navigation abilities when you walk or bike in your local area.

ndriscoll 15d ago

One thing I've learned in life is to accept that I'm in many ways an outlier, which means that even if the research is done, it frequently doesn't apply to me anyway. Like I wouldn't doubt that research could show that more time spent on youtube is inversely correlated with learning. But if you just use it to watch lectures or tutorials for some skill, obviously you will be an outlier. Or when "research shows that dieting doesn't work," obviously the result there is "research shows that most people don't maintain a healthy diet," and it shouldn't dissuade you from doing so. Choosing to do so anyway is what makes you the outlier. And so it will likely go with AI's effect on the brain. Most people will likely use it to avoid thinking, and the research will show it to be a disaster. A small group will use (or already is using) it to challenge them and expose them to new ideas. You can choose to be in the latter group if you'd like.

johnnyanmac 15d ago
>You can choose to be in the latter group if you'd like. And now you inherit the burden of proving you are "one of the good ones" after a mass amount of disappointment from the normal use case. I don't think the "it's okay, I'm different" methodology ever works out unless you can prove you are so utterly beyond the competition that you can't be ignored. But an outlier is just that. And as we see here, outliers cannot change society single-handedly. You at least need to be an outlier good enough to convince a lot of "normal" people that you are to their benefit and be willing to lead those "normal" people.
- ndriscoll 15d ago
  You don't need to prove anything or lead anyone or change society. You have a tool in front of you that can help you achieve your goals or distract you from them. You decide how you want to use it. Just do your thing. > It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. Ralph Waldo Emerson
  - johnnyanmac 15d ago