[chii]

> It's like expecting them to do arithmetic by hand. No one does.

But those who traditionally learnt arithmetics have had this training, which _enables_ higher order thinking.

Being reliant on AI to do this means they would not have had that same level of training. It could prevent them from being able to synthesize new patterns or recognize them (and so if the AI also cannot do the same, you get stagnation).

[lordnacho]

I suspect schools spend a lot less time on arithmetic than they used to, however.

You used to _actually_ need to do the arithmetic, now you just need to understand when a calculator is not giving you what you expected. (Not that this is being taught either, lol)

You can get to the higher order thinking sooner than if you spent years grinding multiplication tables.

[oytis]

> you just need to understand when a calculator is not giving you what you expected

How do you do that if you can't do arithmetic by hand though? At most, when working with integers, you can count digits to check if the order of magnitude is correct.

[lordnacho]

You can do arithmetic by hand without being fast or accurate. It's still useful to check that calculations are correct, it's just slow for the ancient use of tallying up a bill.