Are you at all concerned that plugging stuff like this into ChatGPT is leaving you with weaker cognitive muscles? Or is it more similar to what people do when they see a new word and reach for their dictionary?
I see AI like the reading glasses I’ll soon need — not because I can’t think clearly, but because it helps cut through things faster when my brain’s juggling too much.
A few years ago, I’d have quietly filed this kind of article under “too hard” or passed a log analysis request from the CIO down the line. Now? I get AI to draft the query, check it, run it, and move on. It’s not about thinking less — it’s about clearing the clutter so I can focus where it counts.
> Are you at all concerned that plugging stuff like this into ChatGPT is leaving you with weaker cognitive muscles?
Couldn't this very same argument have been used against any form of mental augmentation, like written language and computers? Or, in an extended interpretation, against any form of physical augmentation, like tool use?
In fact it has been, dating all the way back to Phaedrus.
> If men learn [writing], it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.
There is another side to this, which is maybe we don’t need to know a lot of things.
It was true with search engines already, but maybe truer with LLMs. That thing you’re querying probably doesn’t actually matter. It’s neurotic digging and searching for an object you will never use or benefit from. The urge to seek is strong but you won’t find the thing you’re searching for this way.
It's almost certainly going to be bad, and almost certainly going to be unavoidable.
I can't spell for shit anymore. Ever since auto correct became omnipresent in pretty much all writing fields, my brain just kinda ditched remembering how to spell words.
buuuttt
Manual labor has been obsolete for at least 100 years now for certain classes of people, and fitness is still an enormous recreational activity people partake in. So even in an AI heavy society, I still strongly suspect there will be "brain games" that people still enjoy and regularly play.
We aren't talking about something like spelling or digging a hole. We're talking about a fundamental cognitive skill: reading eight short paragraphs of text and extracting meaning from it.
Fair point. But they are heavily metaphor-laden paragraphs.
Textual interpretation is a highly subjective activity. Entire careers consist of interpreting, reinterpreting, and discussing texts that others have already interpreted. Film critics, book reviewers, political pundits, TV anchors, podcasters, etc.
'In 1972, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai was asked about the impact of the French Revolution. "Too early to say," he replied'
I had my own sense of what the "coquina" metaphor stood for. I wanted to see other peoples' interpretations. Turns out my interpretation was wrong.
This is increasingly happening to me every day. Hope the alien overlords don't have spelling tests (as their version of IQ tests) to separate the serfs from the field-masters.
A few years ago, I’d have quietly filed this kind of article under “too hard” or passed a log analysis request from the CIO down the line. Now? I get AI to draft the query, check it, run it, and move on. It’s not about thinking less — it’s about clearing the clutter so I can focus where it counts.