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Sure, having a real-time data source is nice for avoiding construction/traffic, and I'd use a real-time map, but going beyond that to be spoon fed your next action over and over leads to dependency.
I can't say that I'm totally unaffected by contemporary technology, and my attention span seems to have suffered a little, but I think I'm mostly still intact. I read most days for pleasure and have started a book club. I deliberately take long walks without bringing my smartphone; it's a great feeling of freedom, almost like going back to a simpler time.
I'm undecided on this, initially I was on the “this is bad, we’re outsourcing our thinking” bandwagon, now after using AI for lots of different types of tasks for a while now, I feel like generally I’ve learnt so much, so much more quickly. Would I recall it all without my new crutch? Maybe not, but I may not have learnt it in the first place without it.
You are not necessarily typical.
Stepping back - the way fundamental technology gets adopted by populations always has a distribution between those that leverage it as a tool, and those that enjoy it as a luxury.
When the internet blew up, the population of people that consumed web services dwarfed the population of people that became web developers. Before that when the microcomputer revolution was happening, there were once again an order of magnitude more users than developers.
Even old tech - such as written language - has this property. The number of readers dwarfs the number of writers. And even within the set of all "writers", if you were to investigate most text produced, you'd find that the vast majority of it is falls into that long tail of insipid banter, gossip, diaries, fanfiction, grocery lists, overwrought teenage love letters, etc.
The ultimate consequences of this tech will depend on the interplay between those two groups - the tool wielders and the product enjoyers - and how that manifests for this particular technology in this particular set of world circumstances.
For an example of where this already happened, look at the number of people who literally don't have a minor inkling of how to plan a route or navigate without a GPS and mapping software. Sure, having a real-time data source is nice for avoiding construction/traffic, and I'd use a real-time map, but going beyond that to be spoon fed your next action over and over leads to dependency.
Ages ago someone surely cried that cars will cause our legs to disfunction.
I feel like I these doom prognostications were also written during the industrial revolution, the invention of electricity, the invention of television, the invention of the internet, ... We've turned out okay.
Socrates on writing "For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not tr…
My current opinion is that AI is just a thing that is going to further amplify our existing tendencies (on a person-to-person basis). I've personally found it to be extremely beneficial in research, learning, and the category of "things that take time because of the stuff you have to mechanically go through and not because of the brainpower involved". I have been able to spend so much more time on things that I feel…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are not necessarily typical.
Right. It doesn't matter how smart you still are if the majority of society turns into Idiocracy. Second, we're all at risk of blind spots in estimating how disciplined we're being about using the shortcut machine the right way. Smart people like me, you, grandparent aren't immune to that.
For an example of where this already happened, look at the number of people who literally don't have a minor inkling of how to plan a route or navigate without a GPS and mapping software. Sure, having a real-time data source is nice for avoiding construction/traffic, and I'd use a real-time map, but going beyond that to be spoon fed your next action over and over leads to dependency.