[themafia]

> That has never happened before like this.

You should possibly spend some time reading what people used to say about the invention of Radio and Television.

> It is quite extraordinary and breath-taking at times to see the agents in action;

So is any magic trick. The unsettling notion that it may all just be an illusion that you've failed to correctly understand doesn't seem to weigh on people.

> its almost hard-drug like in its potential long-term psychological effects.

That might have more to do with how the owners of these products choose to market and deploy them. Perhaps if they peeled back the covers just slightly your euphoria would change to dread. There's an Upton Sinclair moment coming.

[nilirl]

Relatedly, this is Plato on writing:

"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"

[Jensson]

And he was right, that is why we don't let people bring their textbooks to most tests. That rule wasn't made because we hate students, its because it improves the outcomes if we force people to commit things to memory instead of just looking them up.

You would need similar restrictions during the learning phase to get people to learn things in an LLM world.

So writing and LLM are still a net positive, but only if you acknowledge the problem and add fixes so people still learn rather than just rely on this crutch.