it’s getting to the point where I notice people say it a lot, especially IRL now for whatever reason recently.
And for clarity I’m not in research or anything, so these people just mean ‘LLM/image gen’, not utilities like OCR or (usually not) transcription.
Some have argued it’s just more efficient (which I can kind of get), while others think you’re actively hindering your intelligence somehow.
On the first point:
I’ve tried it occasionally to see how it compares to my own skill, and while it produces a functional result, it’s always very derivative work to the point where you can find things with the exact same names of other ‘public’ (but not libre) works, and often isn’t the ideal solution to what it targets. So I can see how you can get things out of it, but it never felt really that profound to me.
But for the second… isn’t this supposed to be the tool for people to do things they aren’t experienced in? If anything, you probably need to be able to understand how to write pertaining to the task so the token probabilities are biased toward writing from that area.
And even then, if all you end up doing is prompting AI, then wouldn’t you ultimately serve no purpose outside of being glorified QA?
I guess I’m trying to figure out what exactly non-users would be ‘falling behind’ in that affects them more than those who use AI?
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/pisa-2025-results-volume-i_73451bc5-en.html
Students who use LLMs a lot are overall much worse off then their regular counterparts. Now, whether that means slower students use LLM more (without it having any real effect) or that LLM use is degrading their ability is unknown, but it’s pretty clear and extremely damning.
I agree they are capable of that, but I think that’s improper use and is deserving of its own slur: meat proxy.
The same result has been shown for calculators, and I think it’s the same problem. Overreliance is not a new problem.
I like physical strength as an analogy; you’re not going to get any stronger by using a forklift all day, but you’re also not going to keep up with other operators if you’re loading trucks by hand. Strength can also make you a better forklift operator (tighter ratchet straps, convenient staging, etc.) but using a forklift for everything all the time will make your body weaker.
I think it’s analogous, and I think if you’re not using your brain as much as you would without AI, you’re not using it as a tool and are instead outsourcing your thinking.
Nobody expects a mathematician to do arithmetic by hand, but also nobody will beat a good mathematician without a calculator at arithmetic, either. I see it as generally the same thing; part of the process is (relatively) automated allowing for higher level development.