AI-assisted cognition endangers human development? • Hacker News Board

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#121

Post by bigfishrunning » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 8:21 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #73

daveguy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if a plumber moves fast and breaks things, I've got shit all over the place.

That, and also the plumber loses their license. So perhaps the solution is professional licensing for software engineers.

I feel like a licencing process for software engineers would

A) test lots of skills that are common but not universal. I'm thinking javascript trivia here, where I don't write any javascript in my professional capacity as a software engineer; but there are many people who think Software Engineer == Javascript Programmer

B) shine too much of a light on the fact that this industry is full of people who demand high salaries but can't program their way out of a paper bag

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#122

Post by superxpro12 » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 8:24 PM UTC

svnt wrote: post #85

It is a quirky article but the author, instead of engaging with information sources to understand what important thoughts people have had about these topics, feels the best thing to do is introduce new terms that other terms already exist for. This is basically just inductive bias plus the AI homogenization idea producing a distribution shift. This is what happens in thought-isolation. It isn’t better than educating…

I think we're excluding from this analysis the probability that these "AI" products will remain truly unbiased and free from external (corporate) influences.

When AI gains true marketshare in the "think-space", I have zero trust that the corporate overlords controlling these machines will use them in the fairest interests of humanity.

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#123

Post by cyanydeez » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 8:26 PM UTC

Do we think AI is similar to being rich, but without all that cash? I mean, they can basically offload most things to other people to think about.

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#124

Post by drivebyhooting » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 8:27 PM UTC

If computers are bicycles for the mind and AI are cars, I wonder what the analogue for the obesity epidemic is.

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#125

Post by Ucalegon » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 8:27 PM UTC

Retr0id wrote: post #100

Ucalegon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats the thing about a normalization system, it is going to normalize outputs because its not built to output uniqueness, its to winnow uniqueness to a baseline. That is good in some instances, assuming that baseline is correct, but it also closes the aperture of human expression.

I agree in a "the purpose of a system is what it does" sense but I'm not sure they're inherently normalization systems.

Token selection is based off normalization, even if you train a model to produce outlier answers, even in that process you are biasing to a subset of outliers, which is inherently normalizing.

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#126

Post by antonvs » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 8:29 PM UTC

svnt wrote: post #85

It is a quirky article but the author, instead of engaging with information sources to understand what important thoughts people have had about these topics, feels the best thing to do is introduce new terms that other terms already exist for. This is basically just inductive bias plus the AI homogenization idea producing a distribution shift. This is what happens in thought-isolation. It isn’t better than educating…

When I read pieces like this all I think is, resistance to change is a helluva drug.

I've been working on a project and using LLMs heavily to inform my design decisions. There's already a long list of cases where it has taught me things I wasn't familiar with, alerted me to possibilities I didn't consider, shown me how to do things that I was struggling with. In those cases I ask for references, and it delivers.

This is not "endangering human development". If anything, it's the exact opposite - allowing human knowledge to be transmitted to other humans in an accessible way that otherwise, usually simply would not have happened.

Of course, this all depends on using AI to enhance cognition and access to knowledge, as opposed to just letting a machine write all your code for you without review, Yegge-style.

I'm not saying there isn't a moral dimension to all this, and areas of serious concern. But the one about "endangering human development" is wholly in our individual hands. You can use AI to help you learn, or to replace the need to learn. The former will be better for human development.

One real lesson from this is perhaps that we need to teach people how to use AI in ways that benefit their development, not just their output.

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#127

Post by giancarlostoro » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 8:29 PM UTC

I think the best way I can put it is probably; this is the same as if you just cheat off someone else in school, you aren't learning much are you? AI is the same thing. Don't just cheat, use it to learn instead.

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#128

Post by rpcope1 » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 8:30 PM UTC

superxpro12 wrote: post #122

svnt wrote: post #85

It is a quirky article but the author, instead of engaging with information sources to understand what important thoughts people have had about these topics, feels the best thing to do is introduce new terms that other terms already exist for. This is basically just inductive bias plus the AI homogenization idea producing a distribution shift. This is what happens in thought-isolation. It isn’t better than educating…

I think we're excluding from this analysis the probability that these "AI" products will remain truly unbiased and free from external (corporate) influences. When AI gains true marketshare in the "think-space", I have zero trust that the corporate overlords controlling these machines will use them in the fairest interests of humanity.

You're absolutely right! But Brawndo has what plants crave!

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#129

Post by gdubya » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 8:31 PM UTC

drivebyhooting wrote: post #124

If computers are bicycles for the mind and AI are cars, I wonder what the analogue for the obesity epidemic is.

That is a sharp and slightly chilling analogy. If Steve Jobs saw the computer as a tool that amplified human effort (the bicycle), and AI represents a tool that automates that effort entirely (the car), then the "obesity epidemic" of the mind is likely Cognitive Atrophy.

- Gemini

Re: AI-assisted cognition endangers human development?

#130

Post by antonvs » Wed, Apr 15, 2026, 8:32 PM UTC

drivebyhooting wrote: post #124

If computers are bicycles for the mind and AI are cars, I wonder what the analogue for the obesity epidemic is.

The obesity epidemic has much less to do with cars and much more to do with cheapness of food and volume consumed.

A typical deli sandwich in the US should be enough to last any normal person three days. Same goes for e.g. ice cream from Shake Shack (random example I know, but one I came across recently). If you buy one of these and eat them in one sitting, the answer to "why am I obese" is simply "you eat way too much."