[thisisnotauser]

I think a lot of doomerism over AI making everyone stupid is really overestimating how many people have good critical thinking skills today. I've worked in high skill engineering domains for nearly twenty years now and even well-accomplished people are often pretty unimpressive when it comes to really understanding complex concepts.

I anticipate smart people will not suffer some handicap simply because easy answers are now readily available for the vast bulk of people who were never going to think critically in the first place.

[drakonka]

I think I am relatively smart and I can feel myself getting dumber when I over-rely on AI for certain things. I've had to carefully observe the effect and choose what I "allow" myself to use it for.

Example: when I use it for prose for fiction or my personal blog, I can feel my own imagination for constructing good sentences and my own vocabulary deteriorate much faster than I would've expected. But when I used it purely for brainstorming plot points _or_ doing a quick proofreading pass on a set of notes I already took myself that I want to post, I feel no sudden negative effects.

Feeling that sudden difference in competency is jarring - in a good way. It's very useful information. I wonder whether people growing up with these tools from the beginning won't get that benefit - they won't have a "before AI" and "after AI" brain to "jar" them into awareness and adjustment. Then again... maybe the skills I am trying to preserve will be seen as entirely irrelevant to them regardless.

[anal_reactor]

Ding ding ding.

There is this overly optimistic view that average person is intelligent, which is definitely not the case. AI doesn't make people stupid, it just exposes the existing stupidity.