[scarface_74]

Students in school even post ChatGPT let alone better “AI” will find their growth limited. They will never learn how to solve complex math or logic problems or how to write.

You will also see long term affects in the industry as the pre-AI generation leaves the market.

It was already hard for entry level developers to break the can’t get a job <-> don’t have experience cycle. It is even harder now.

Before there was always some simple busy work that senior developers didn’t have time to do so you would hire a junior level developer who needed to be told exactly what to do. LLMs are already as competent as a junior developer. Why hire them?

I see the next level of hallowing out to be mid level experienced “ticker takers” who just take well defined business use cases off the board and do the work. For non software companies, a lot of that work has already been outsourced to SaaS offerings where businesses hire a consulting company to do the implementation (various ERPs, EHR/EMR systems, Salesforce, ServiceNow, etc)

[AnimalMuppet]

More generally, a large segment of the population outsources their thinking to ChatGPT. The outcome of that will not be good, especially with the current mismatch between what ChatGPT actually is and what the public think it is. People will put too much trust in it, and it will ruin lives. Even for those it doesn't ruin, outsourcing your thinking is a poor way to get smarter.

[satvikpendem]

Socrates: I heard, then, that at Naucratis, in Egypt, was one of the ancient gods of that country, the one whose sacred bird is called the ibis, and the name of the god himself was Theuth. He it was who invented numbers and arithmetic and geometry and astronomy, also draughts and dice, and, most important of all, letters.

Now the king of all Egypt at that time was the god Thamus, who lived in the great city of the upper region, which the Greeks call the Egyptian Thebes, and they call the god himself Ammon. To him came Theuth to show his inventions, saying that they ought to be imparted to the other Egyptians. But Thamus asked what use there was in each, and as Theuth enumerated their uses, expressed praise or blame, according as he approved or disapproved.

"The story goes that Thamus said many things to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts, which it would take too long to repeat; but when they came to the letters, "This invention, O king," said Theuth, "will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memories; for it is an elixir of memory and wisdom that I have discovered." But Thamus replied, "Most ingenious Theuth, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their usefulness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another; and now you, who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that which they really possess.

"For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise."

- Plato's dialogue Phaedrus 14, 274c-275b

[AnimalMuppet]

Well, you know, that's just, like, Plato's opinion, man. (Or maybe Socrates's.)

Plato's opinion, that we accurately know what it was 2300 years later, because he wrote it down for us.

[scarface_74]

> Even for those it doesn't ruin, outsourcing your thinking is a poor way to get smarter.

How many phone numbers do you know in your head versus when you were younger? I know three phone numbers from memory - my wife’s, my mom’s (she has had the same phone number since I was born) and an aunt that lives at my grandparents house since they passed and she has the same phone number.

When you go to a new city, do you try to find your way around like you use to or do you use GPS?

[huevosabio]

> More generally, a large segment of the population outsources their thinking

Absolutely. I find myself sometimes being tempted to just ask Claude for the most vanal things. It's going to get more and more tempting.