Is AI making us stupid?
I hate to say it and I don't want to sound pessimistic (but it's probably happening already :D)...
with all the conveniences we have, we are so fast and unfortunately also comfortable.
Have you noticed that when using Chat GPT or AI you don't even bother to think anymore?
So I use it to get information and I think I'm learning something, but I don't know if I'm really learning anything when AI does everything for me.
It's like a modern calculator that gives you the result without you understanding the processes and structures behind the calculations.
Is AI making us stupid? How do you approach using AI so that you still can learn and "use" your brain more actively?
IMO this will be a huge thing for the next generations and kids because if they rely too much on AI, they can become either geniuses or very lazy and illiterate people.
Replies
No doubt! The moment we stop thinking the brain's neuron systems won't get triggered, and eventually become dumb. To survive, humans should always outsmart AI and have better control. There should be a clear distinction between when we should use AI and when not.
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@veeresh_devireddy Glad that someone came up with a scientifical answer for this :)
Haha this a brilliant post. Funny, I was thinking that this morning. I typed in a prompt and it gave me rubbish back. (Could that be rubbish in, rubbish out? Maybe but even still).
It made me think, will we even think properly and critically anymore?
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@lisa_steingold1 Let's imagine people blindly rely on things that ChatGPT will tell you. Without questioning or needing to know the background behind that. And let's imagine a ChatGPT full of promoted content, conspiracy theories etc. What will be the result for people using it? Decreasing they quality maybe. There will be a huge knowledge and critical thinking gap.
@busmark_w_nika I shudder to think! (excuse the pun). Let's all make fact checking and thinking a priority everyone!
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@lisa_steingold1 Good question! I think we need to be more aware of how much thinking we’re outsourcing to AI without even realizing it. Maybe the key is to force ourselves to think and write more on our own, even if it takes longer or isn’t as “perfect” as AI would make it.
Long-term, that struggle is probably what keeps our brains sharp. Otherwise, we might just become really efficient at copy-pasting. 😅
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@lisa_steingold1 @hussein_r copy pasting happens a decade. Some university students are a good example :D
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Product Hunt
Maybe not dumb, but lazier but also more efficient?
I like what @sentry_co said - I do think we can now quickly execute tasks that would take time (TL;DR on documentation, get a rough draft of a plan, get foundational code for an app) but I do think that if used incorrectly, we'll come to expect AI to do the work for us and we'll hate when we have to do it ourselves.
Think Library without computers, you'd have to use a card catalog to search for the book or topic you're looking for.
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@sentry_co @gabe It can narrow our focus and make the processes faster, that is a sure thing. My doubt, however, is that the vast majority of "average" people have no need to think critically or go deeper.
Unfortunately, this majority of people take over the world because they are "the majority".
And this is then transcribed into everyday life in the form of politics, fighting, culture (how we treat each other), etc.
Tech people and people with high ambitions can benefit from that and the rest (the majority) will waste a lot of potential.
DiffSense
The majority is irrelevant in the automation age I am afraid. Techno feudism will be absolute. Unless we implement minute democracy system wide. Which will probably happen. Already the swiss has direct democracy like this. I see brewings of this emerging elsewhere as well. Probably a reaction to the times.
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@sentry_co it takes time. While others fight for democracy, others will suppress it and that's what makes us unequal on the global level "surprisingly."
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@sentry_co @gabe Yeah, that’s exactly it, it’s not making us dumb, but it’s rewiring how we approach effort. We get used to shortcuts, and suddenly, the manual way feels unbearable.
The library example is spot on. AI is like having an instant search + summary tool, but if we rely on it too much, we forget how to dig deeper and connect ideas ourselves. The real challenge is using AI as a tool, not a crutch.
Have you noticed any areas where AI has made you worse at something you used to do manually?
I think that it's all about finding balance. And instead of resisting AI, we need to be adapting, because let's face it, it's AI era and well it will be (mildly speaking) unwise not to use this technology. Me personally, I see it as an assistant that can help me work smarter, not harder. I use it for tons of things but mostly for making some processes at work automated, so that I have time of things that I actually love to do, on things that require some creativity, and things that are more important than for example... structuring large datasets.
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@oksana_ch I suppose we have the best of both worlds. We know that "analogical" approach + that "ChatGPT" approach. But let's imagine kids. They will know only about that ChatGPT. If they will not be critically thinking, it will be like cheating during exams, just rewriting what colleague or classmate said (Chatgpt). Not very much thinking whether the statement is true or not.
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@oksana_ch Yeah, I totally agree, resisting AI isn’t the move, adapting is. At this point, it’s like trying to ignore the internet in the early 2000s, you can, but why make life harder?
I like how you put it: AI as an assistant, not a replacement. The real challenge is making sure we’re still actively thinkingand not just becoming operators of AI tools.
@busmark_w_nika yeah, true. Well, I think that reading develops critical thinking and if we somehow teach the kids to love the books, to love to read, then there shouldn't be a problem with critical thinking.
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@oksana_ch I would say that some camps for kids where they have to work in teams can also have an effect.
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I mean… let’s be honest, AI is making us lazy. But maybe that’s not even the biggest issue. I notice it all the time, especially being younger, ChatGPT gets used for literally everything. Need a text? ChatGPT. Homework? ChatGPT. Even people brainstorming business ideas just throw a prompt in and call it research. It’s wild.
The real danger? AI makes us feel smarter than we actually are. When ChatGPT explains something, we nod like we understood it, but if someone asked us to explain it back, we’d sound like a glitchy chatbot ourselves.
That’s what makes me curious about the future. Are we just outsourcing thinking? Or will AI force us to focus on higher-level creativity and problem-solving instead?
I guess we’ll see. But yeah, have you ever thought you "learned" something from AI, only to realize later you had no idea how it actually worked? Because same. 😅
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@hussein_r It is a paradox, ChatGPT is copying from knowledge we gave it and now, we are trying to reproduce what ChatGPT said. It is like one game we used to play "telephone". At the end you will receive totally wrong answer. Maybe you know that game. So this is it :D
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@busmark_w_nika I know that game, and I have to admit I chuckled a bit while reading your comment, such a perfect comparison! 😂 It really does feel like a never-ending loop of slightly distorted information.
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@hussein_r Bottom down. Idiocracy IRL :DDD
DiffSense
I dunno. My thinking is that we now operate more high level. While we can drill down in the nitty gritty 10x faster than before. And then zoom right back up to high level again. High level is nice IMO. You can do more. Do we want to go back to spending 2 weeks on the nitty gritty, learning useless things we will never do again? thats nostalgia. Nostalgia are for the romantics. 😈
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@sentry_co We are so questionable, we are in the middle of the era, but what about those newcomers. It is a certain thing that many things will die and will be replaced with the different. Would be pretty interesting how our brain and perception will evolve. Now I have FOMO to see that biological change.
DiffSense
I dont think there is biological change at all. Has not been for 100s of thousands of years. Biology moves slow. As such we amp up with tech. We still sit in caves with candle light fires prefering the dark-mode. I think biologically we are at peak. tech however still has some road to go. We progress by building on top of what came before. If we reset everything today. No memory. We go back to the caves, and evolution takes 100s of thousands of years to get to this point again.
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@sentry_co that's sure thing, but it contributes to it. maybe if we do not destroy each other until that, in a few thousands years we will be somehow different (physically, mentally etc.) :D
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@d_ferencha I would wish such a model. But I think it should be done at the moment because if AI is learning according to the outputs we gave to it, and if we are becoming dumber and will give it dumber conclusions, the quality of AI can be also wrong. I dunno. :D
This is quite an interesting and complex question. Certainly with the use of AI we become as if more defenseless when it is not there, it is possible that with long term use in new generations that something atrophies in the head and they will not even be able to understand how to light a fire without prompting AI bots or as now many. information we can not find without Internet search engines. (￣～￣;)
I suggest to consider AI as a logical continuation of a human being. Something like airplanes have become our wings, cars our new fast legs. When animals evolved in their natural essence of evolution, man evolved in a different sense, grew a mind that would eventually grow a new mind in the form of AI.
Although it's depressing that one solar flare could strip us of all this accumulated “evolutionary” process, huh. ლ(ಠ_ಠ ლ)
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IMO, we still should be tested in the real world to not have that "atrophy".
Speaking about forgetting about our skills – it is like that one scene from the movie Demolition Man when new cops in the future didn't know how to deal with the enemy guy from the past :D
chatWise
If for every problem you have you use AI to answer questions definitely.
But let's not forget, we have been using Google for at least a decade (at my age at least), which is a similar thing. You have been asking questions that you never went through the process to reason about yourself.
So we definitely have been getting dumber for a long time now. If AI escalates this, maybe, it should definitely be monitored in terms of how it is used. But i think for top level, repetitive tasks, it should be used, so u have capacity to do the creative ones.
AI is our full-time employ. Is just that the Big Tech is desperately trying to achieve the exact opposite.
Definitely recommend Technofeudalism from Yanis Varoufakis, or any articles of his around "cloud capital"
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@cryptosymposium Oh no, another book recommendation. Please, stop it, because I will go bankrupt. The last couple of months just buying many books :D Just reading the into of the publication. Looks good.
chatWise
@busmark_w_nika haha sorry I had to. recommending books to people is my "disease" . the majority does not read them tho........heart breaking sound in the background....
Streak Hunter
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@denisss Completely removed? Because it can help you to be faster. I mean... it is crucial to find balance at using it.
Streak Hunter
@busmark_w_nika I don't quite know yet either ... But how do you find a good middle way?
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@denisss Maybe with limited tokens. The certain parts could be solved with AI and when you run out your attempts, so bye, you need to put more effort into your own thinking.