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That makes sense! I frequently have it write python. I'll say though, working on Go for more than a decade and coding for more than a lot of people have been alive is likely proof you're not one of the people this article is talking about. I don't think I've been made stupider by LLMs either but, like someone else said, maybe a bit lazier about things. I am not the author so I should stop talking as if I know their t…
I'm not that old.
When I first began, I tried vibe coding the backend, but found the feeling of disconnect from "my" code too uncomfortable so abandoned that approach.
I've been relying pretty heavily on ChatGPT to help me learn unfamiliar technologies, but perhaps because of its fallibility with DuckDB, I've been spending a lot of time in the documentation and writing my own queries, and I think I'm going through enough cognitive difficulty to be learning properly.
There was one time when I'd spent probably at least a day trying to optimise a query in Postgres (yes, two database technologies, don't ask) without much success, and ChatGPT completely solved it in about 10 minutes. Incredible result, helped me learn some useful techniques. There are so many rabbit holes on this project it's nice not to have to go down every single one by myself.
On HN there's often this split between anti-AI and AI evangelists but there really is a lot of space in the middle: judicious use of AI for specific purposes, managing the risks and benefits, etc.
(Side note...did the OP really mention the highly discredited broken windows theory?)
Plato was against writing, as it makes us dumber. https://fs.blog/an-old-argument-against-writing/
Bit tangential, but I find oral traditions really interesting, the sheer scale of what can be done is quite impressive: https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2016/04/08/abo... -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songline
https://www.fantasticanachronism.com/p/having-had-no-predece...
Plato was against writing, as it makes us dumber. https://fs.blog/an-old-argument-against-writing/
I imagine his memory and those of people who memorized instead of wrote were better. So by that metric, writing is making people dumber. It's just not all that relevant today, and we don't prioritize memorization to the extent Plate and the ancient Greeks probably did.
Funny enough, that's kinda what we're seeing with LLMs. We're past the "regurgitate the training set" now, and we're more interested in mixing and matching stuff in the context window so we get to a desired goal (i.e. tool use, search, "thinking" and so on). How about that...
Just as the engine replaced physical strength, artificial intelligence, through models like large language models, is now replacing cognitive labor and thought. From the article "Muscles grow by lifting weights" yet we do that now as a hobby and not as a critical job. I'm not sure I want to live in a world where thinking is a gym like activity, however if you go back 200 years it would probably be difficult to explai…
That kind of describes the experience of retired people who do sudokus to stave off dementia. I suspect it's a bit akin to going from being a lumberjack to doing 10 squats a day though.
Did Google and Yahoo make us dumber?
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thats kinda embarrassing
Would you groan if you had to take public transit while your car was broken down? If you love to knit that's cool but don't get on me because I'd rather buy a factory sweater and get on with my day. I love creating things, I love solving problems, I love designing elegant systems. I don't love mashing keys.
biking instead of driving would be a better analogy... which you might have caught if llms hadn't made you dumber.
I've been thinking about this a bit in the context of a current, very complex and challenging side project. When I first began, I tried vibe coding the backend, but found the feeling of disconnect from "my" code too uncomfortable so abandoned that approach. I've been relying pretty heavily on ChatGPT to help me learn unfamiliar technologies, but perhaps because of its fallibility with DuckDB, I've been spending a lot…
Dumb is more the inability to make expedient, salient, and useful decisions either from the lack of knowledge or the fundamental incapability to process the available knowledge. Dumb is accidental or genetic. AI won't affect how dumb we are. I think they will decrease the utility of crystalline knowledge skills and increase our fluid knowledge skills. Smart people will still find ways to thrive in the environment. Hu…