[rybosworld]

Right - but you could imagine a similar sentiment anytime a skill was replaced by a new technology.

I think the jury is still out on whether LLMs actually lead to complete atrophy of skills that don't eventually get replaced with brand new skills.

[boringg]

Anecdotally people have been noticing atrophy quite a bit. Again its anecdotal because we can't possibly have a study that works in real time because the technology is rolling out insanely quickly.

And all the older technologies that have rolled out haven't competed against our cognitive abilities at speed and scale.

I don't think of cognitive ability as a skill per se - more of a critical core function of humanity.

I say this as someone who uses it extensively not some luddite but is also very aware of the risks which I assume are worse for people who have limited understanding on the matter.

[rybosworld]

I don't disagree at all actually.

I am just not completely sure that we won't gain something new on the other side of this, in the same way the calculator outsourced the need for doing arithmetic in our heads.

My argument is more that, the speed and scale is so unlike anything that we've seen before, that this time _feels_ like more of an attack on something to core to what humanity is. But maybe it's just that: a feeling.

LLMs/AI could very well be the worst case scenario we are imagining/discussing here. I just don't think we know enough to say that's how it will definitely play out.