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Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task

arxiv.org

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Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task

#301

Post by chongli »

lostlogin wrote: post #291
risyachka wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really . You have to memorise much more in today’s world to be able to do any kind of work.

I’m not sure of my retelling of events from the same day. Aboriginal storytelling is claimed to pass on events from 7k+ years ago. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00049182.2015.10...

We already know how oral cultures work: they use technologies such as rhyme, meter, music, stock characters, memory palaces, and more. If you want a good example of how powerful this stuff is, think about the last time you had a song stuck in your head.

Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task

#302

Post by risyachka »

This is exactly why there is no point in using AI for coding unless in rare fee cases.

Code without AI - sharp skills, your brain works and you come up with better solutions etc.

Code with AI - skills decline after merely a week or two, you forget how to think and because of relying on AI for simpler and simpler tasks - your total output is less and worse that in you were to diy it.

Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task

#303

Post by jwblackwell »

One slightly unexpected side effect of using AI to do most of my coding now is that I find myself a lot less tired and can focus for longer periods. It's enabled me to get work done while faced with other distractions. Essentially, offload some mental capacity towards AI frees up capacity elsewhere.

Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task

#304

Post by khazhoux »

arethuza wrote: post #296
fercircularbuf wrote: post #283

As the proliferation of the smart phone eroded our ability to locate and orient ourselves and remember routes to places. It's no surprise that a tool like this, used for the purpose of outsourcing a task that our own brains would otherwise do, would result in a decline in the skills that would be trained if we were performing that task ourselves.

The only two times I have made bad navigation mistakes in mountains were in the weeks after I started using my phone and a mapping app - the realisation that using my phone was making me worse at navigation was quite a shock at the time.

But you didn't become worse at navigation. Sounds like you trusted a tool, and it failed you.

Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task

#305

Post by Daviey »

aniketsaurav18 wrote: post #277

I wonder what LLMs will do to us in the long term.

Similar to the effects of the internet. Before the internet, people used to have to research subject matter in the library, or (shock) ask someone knowledgeable, and likely trust their view.

I remember around ~2000 reading a paper that said the effects of the internet made people impatient and unwilling to accept delays in answering their questions, and a poorer retention of knowledge (as they could just re-research it quickly).

Before daily use of computers, my spelling and maths were likely better, now I have an overdependence on tools.

With LLM's, i'll likely become over-dependant on managing of sentence syntax and subject completion.

The cycle continues...

Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task

#306

Post by DocTomoe »

jwblackwell wrote: post #303

One slightly unexpected side effect of using AI to do most of my coding now is that I find myself a lot less tired and can focus for longer periods. It's enabled me to get work done while faced with other distractions. Essentially, offload some mental capacity towards AI frees up capacity elsewhere.

I like to think of AI as cars:

You can go to the Walmart outside town on foot. And carry your stuff back. But it is much faster - and less exhaustive - to use the car. Which means you can spend more quality time on things you enjoy.

Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task

#308

Post by santiagobasulto »

Wasn't THE SAME said when Google came out? That we were not remembering things anymore and we were relying on Google? And also with cellphones before that (even the big dummy brickphones), that we were not remembering phone numbers anymore.

Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task

#309

Post by jajko »

khazhoux wrote: post #304
arethuza wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only two times I have made bad navigation mistakes in mountains were in the weeks after I started using my phone and a mapping app - the realisation that using my phone was making me worse at navigation was quite a shock at the time.

But you didn't become worse at navigation. Sounds like you trusted a tool, and it failed you.

This is splitting hair, at the end his navigation skills (him + whatever tool he used) were NOK and could result in dangerous situations (been there so many times in the mountains, although it was mostly about "went too far in a bit wrong direction and don't want to backtrack that far, I am sure I will find a way to that already close point..." and 10 mins later scrambling on all 4 on some slippery wet rock with no room for error)

Re: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task

#310

Post by theodric »

bootsmann wrote: post #287
theodric wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess, based on what's been found about somewhat better cognitive outcomes in aging in people who make an effort to remain fit and stimulated[1], is that we could see slightly worse cognitive outcomes in people that spent their lives steering an LLM to do the "cognitive cardio" rather than putting in the miles themselves. On the other hand, maybe abacuses and written language won't be the downfall of humanity, des…

> On the other hand, maybe abacuses and written language won't be the downfall of humanity, destroying our ability to hold numbers and memorize long passages of narrative, after all The abacus, the calculator and the book don't randomly get stuff wrong in 15% of cases though. We rely on calculators because they eclipse us in _any_ calculation, we rely on books because they store the stories permanently, but if I use…

We'll definitely need people who can do the hard stuff still!

If we're lucky, the tendency toward random hallucinations will force an upswing in functional skepticism and and lots of mental effort spent verifying outputs! If not, then we're probably cooked.

Maybe a ray of light, even coming from a serious skeptic of generative AI: I've been impressed at what someone with little ability to write code or inclination to learn can accomplish with something like Cursor to crank out little tools and widgets to improve their daily life, similar to how we still need skilled machinists even while 3D printing has enabled greater democratization of object production. LLMs: a 3D printer for software. It may not be great, but if it works, whatever.

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