Well, on the flipside of writing with AI, I've been making an app to read papers with AI! https://www.proread.ai/community/ab7bd00c-e017-4de2-b6fb-502... ; Please give me feedback if you try it!
Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task
41–50 of 442 posts
Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task
#42I wouldn't call it "accumulation of cognitive debt"; just call it cognitive decline, or loss of cognitive skills. And also DUH. If you stop speaking a language you forget it. The brain does not retain information that it does not need. Anybody remember the couple studies on the use of google maps for navigation? One was "Habitual use of GPS negatively impacts spatial memory during self-guided navigation"; another rep…
> You can't just skim a math textbook and know all the math. You have to stop and think. And most importantly you have to write . A lot. Writing allows our brain to structure our thinking. Enables us to have a structured dialogue with ourselves. Explore different paths. Thinking & pondering can only do so much and will reach the limits soon. Writing, on the other hand enables one to explore thoughts nearly endlessly.…
I disagree with this take. I'd say often when exploring new math problems, often it's possible explore the possible solutions paths at lower technical levels first in your mind before anything down--when actually going into details of an approach. I don't think not writing is that limiting if all of your approaches already fail before going into details, which is often the case in early stages of math research.
Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task
#43I wouldn't call it "accumulation of cognitive debt"; just call it cognitive decline, or loss of cognitive skills. And also DUH. If you stop speaking a language you forget it. The brain does not retain information that it does not need. Anybody remember the couple studies on the use of google maps for navigation? One was "Habitual use of GPS negatively impacts spatial memory during self-guided navigation"; another rep…
> The brain does not retain information that it does not need. Why do I still know how to optimize free conventional memory in DOS by configuring config.sys and autoexec.bat? I haven’t done this in 2 decades and I’m reasonably sure I never again will
I think because some experiences are so profound to your brain ( first impression, moments that you are proud of ) that you just replay them over and over again.
Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task
#44I wouldn't call it "accumulation of cognitive debt"; just call it cognitive decline, or loss of cognitive skills. And also DUH. If you stop speaking a language you forget it. The brain does not retain information that it does not need. Anybody remember the couple studies on the use of google maps for navigation? One was "Habitual use of GPS negatively impacts spatial memory during self-guided navigation"; another rep…
> The brain does not retain information that it does not need. Sounds very plausible, though how does that square with the common experience that certain skills, famously 'riding a bike', never go away once learned?
Riding a bike is a skill rather than what we would call a “memory” per se. It’s a skill that develops a new neural pathway throughout your extended nervous system bringing together the lesser senses of proprioception and balance. Once you bring these things together you then go on to use them for other things. You “know” (grok), rather than “understand” how a bike stays upright on a very deep physical level.
Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task
#45I wouldn't call it "accumulation of cognitive debt"; just call it cognitive decline, or loss of cognitive skills. And also DUH. If you stop speaking a language you forget it. The brain does not retain information that it does not need. Anybody remember the couple studies on the use of google maps for navigation? One was "Habitual use of GPS negatively impacts spatial memory during self-guided navigation"; another rep…
> You can't just skim a math textbook and know all the math. You have to stop and think. And most importantly you have to write . A lot. Writing allows our brain to structure our thinking. Enables us to have a structured dialogue with ourselves. Explore different paths. Thinking & pondering can only do so much and will reach the limits soon. Writing, on the other hand enables one to explore thoughts nearly endlessly.…
> And most importantly you have to write. A lot. Writing allows our brain to structure our thinking.
There's a lot of talk about AI assisted coding these days, but I've found similar issues where I'm unable to form a mental model of the program when I rely too much on them (amongst other issues where the model will make unnecessary changes, etc.). This is one of the reasons why I limit their use to "boring" tasks like refactoring or clarifying concepts that I'm unsure about.
> it'll be interesting to see the effect of LLMs on our cognitive skills.
These discussions remind me a lot about this comic[1].
Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task
#46> The LLM undeniably reduced the friction involved in answering participants' questions compared to the Search Engine. However, this convenience came at a cognitive cost, diminishing users' inclination to critically evaluate the LLM's output or ”opinions” (probabilistic answers based on the training datasets). This highlights a concerning evolution of the 'echo chamber' effect: rather than disappearing, it has adapte…
> What is ranked as “top” is ultimately influenced by the priorities of the LLM's shareholders [123, 125]. As if that's anything new. There's the adage that's older than electronics, that freedom of the press is freedom for those who can afford to own a printing press. > However, this convenience came at a cognitive cost, diminishing users' inclination to critically evaluate the LLM's output or ”opinions” (probabilis…
Plato's sock puppet Socrates? I think that you and I have read different history books, or at least different books regarding the history of philosophy. That said, I would love to hear your perspective on this.
Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task
#47Well, on the flipside of writing with AI, I've been making an app to read papers with AI! https://www.proread.ai/community/ab7bd00c-e017-4de2-b6fb-502... ; Please give me feedback if you try it!
Quite a nice interface, it reminds me of the static sites that Perplexity builds in Labs mode. Is it open source?
Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task
#48The results are not surprising, but it's good to have these findings formalized as publications, so that we (or LLMs) can refer to them as ground truth in the future.
Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task
#49The results are not surprising to me personally. When I have used AI to help with my own writing and translation tasks, I do not feel as mentally engaged with the writing or translation process as I would be if I were doing it all on my own. But I have found that using AI in other ways to be incredibly mentally engaging in its own way. For the past two weeks, I’ve been experimenting with Claude Code to see how well i…
I use AI tools for amusement and asking random questions, but for actual work, I basically don't use them at all. I wonder if I'll be part of the increasingly rare group who is actually able to do anything while the rest become progressively more incompetent.
My nickel - we are in the primary stages of being given something like the famed "bicycle for the mind", an exoskeleton for the brain. At first when someone gives you a mech, you're like "woah, cool", let's see what it can do. And then you zip around, smash rocks, buildings, go try to lift the Eiffel.
After a while you get bored of it (duh), and go back to doing what you usually do, utilizing the "bicycle" for the kind of stuff you actually like doing, if it's needed, because while exploration is fun, work is deeply personal and meaningful and does not sustain too much exploration for too long.
(highly personal perspective)
Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task
#50I wouldn't call it "accumulation of cognitive debt"; just call it cognitive decline, or loss of cognitive skills. And also DUH. If you stop speaking a language you forget it. The brain does not retain information that it does not need. Anybody remember the couple studies on the use of google maps for navigation? One was "Habitual use of GPS negatively impacts spatial memory during self-guided navigation"; another rep…
> And also DUH. If you stop speaking a language you forget it. The brain does not retain information that it does not need.
Except when it does-- for example in the abstract where it is written that Brain-to-LLM users "exhibited higher memory recall" than LLM and LLM-to-Brain users.