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Your brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant

media.mit.edu

341–350 of 529 posts

Re: Your brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant

#341
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the typical arrogance of developers not seeing the value in anything but the coding. I've been hands on for 45 years, but also spend 25 of those dealing with architecture and larger systems design. The actual programming is by far the simplest part of designing a large system. Outsourcing it is only dumbing you down if you don't spend the time it frees up to move up the value chain.

Talk about arrogance, Mr 45 years of experience. Ever thought that there might be people under skyscraper that is your ego? I’m pretty sure majority of tech workers aren’t even 45 years old. Where are they supposed to learn good design when slop takes over? You’ve spent at least 20 years JUST programming, assuming you’ve never touched large scale design before last 25 years. Simplest part my ass.

> Ever thought that there might be people under skyscraper that is your ego?

I do, which is exactly why I found the presumption that not spending your time doing the coding is equivalent to a disability both gross and arrogant.

> Where are they supposed to learn good design when slop takes over?

You're not learning good architecture and systems design from code. You learn good architecture and systems design from doing architecture and systems design. It's a very different discipline.

While knowing how to code can be helpful, and can even be important in narrow niches, it is a very minor part of understanding good architecture.

And, yes, I stand by the claim the coding is by far the simplest part, on the basis of having done both for longer than most developers have been doing either.

Re: Your brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant

#342
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the tests are BS too. Why are you creating BS tests? > And nobody is talking about verifying if the AI bubble sort is correct or not - but recognizing that if the AI is implementing it’s own bubble sort, you’re waaaay out in left field. Verifying time and space complexity is part of what your tests should cover. But this is also a funny example - I'm willing to bet the average AI model today can write a far…

But a human developer, even a not so great one, might know something about the characteristics of the actual data a particular program is expected to encounter that is more efficient than this AI-coded hybrid sort for this particular application. This is assuming the AI can't deduce the characteristics of the expected data from the specs, even if a particular time and space complexity is mandated. I encountered somet…

> But a human developer, even a not so great one, might know something about the characteristics of the actual data a particular program is expected to encounter that is more efficient than this AI-coded hybrid sort for this particular application.

Sure. But then that belongs in a test case that 1) documents the assumptions, 2) demonstrates if a specialised solution actually improves on the naive implementation, and 3) will catch regressions if/when those assumptions no longer holds.

In my experience in that specific field is that odds are the human are likely making incorrect assumptions, very occasionally are not, and having a proper test harness to benchmark this is essential to validate the assumptions whether or not the human or an AI does the implementation (and not least in case the characteristics of the data end up changing over time)

Re: Your brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They view the framing of the MIT paper not just as bad science, but as a dangerous social tool that uses brain data to "consign people" to being less worthy or "stupid" for using cognitive aids. It flags the paper's alarmist findings as "pseudoscience" designed to provoke fear rather than provide rigorous insight. They highlight several "red flags" in the study's design: lack of a coherent scientific framework, metho…

Similar to the media, I've picked up on vibes from academia that have a baseline AI negative tilt. In my own (classic) engineering work, AI has become so phenomenally powerful that I can only imagine that if I was still in college, I'd be mostly checked out during those boring lectures/bad teacher classes, and then learning on my own with the textbook and LLMs by night. Which begs the question, what do we need the pr…

That's a fair point regarding pure content absorption, especially given that many classes do suffer from poor didactics. However, the university's value proposition often lies elsewhere: access to professors researching innovations (not yet indexed by LLMs), physical labs for hands-on experience that you can't simulate, and the crucial peer networking with future colleagues. These human and physical elements, along with the soft skills developed through technical debate, are hard to replace. But for standard theory taught by uninspired lecturers, I agree that the textbook plus LLM approach is arguably superior.

Re: Your brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant

#344
post #160

This reminds me of the recurring pattern with every new medium: Socrates worried writing would destroy memory, Gutenberg's critics feared for contemplation, novels were "brain softening," TV was the "idiot box." That said, I'm not sure "they've always been wrong before" proves they're wrong now. Where I'm skeptical of this study: - 54 participants, only 18 in the critical 4th session - 4 months is barely enough time…

Soapbox time. They were arguably right. Pre literate peole could memorise vast texts (Homer's work, Australian Aboriginal songlines). Pre Gutenberg, memorising reasonably large texts was common. See, e.g. the book Memory Craft. We're becoming increasingly like the Wall E people, too lazy and stupid to do anything without our machines doing it for us, as we offload increasing amounts onto them. And it's not even that…

Used to be, Tony Soprano could afford a mansion in New Jersey, buy furs for his wife, and eat out at the strip club for lunch every day, all on a single income as a waste management specialist.

Re: Your brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant

#345
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the tests are BS too. Why are you creating BS tests? > And nobody is talking about verifying if the AI bubble sort is correct or not - but recognizing that if the AI is implementing it’s own bubble sort, you’re waaaay out in left field. Verifying time and space complexity is part of what your tests should cover. But this is also a funny example - I'm willing to bet the average AI model today can write a far…

But a human developer, even a not so great one, might know something about the characteristics of the actual data a particular program is expected to encounter that is more efficient than this AI-coded hybrid sort for this particular application. This is assuming the AI can't deduce the characteristics of the expected data from the specs, even if a particular time and space complexity is mandated. I encountered somet…

>There was no way I could have figured this out early enough to put it in a spec for an AI.

This is an odd statement to me. You act like the AI can only write the application once and can never look at any other data to improve the application again.

>only occurred to me during profiling

At least to me this seems like something that is at far more risk of being automated then general application design in the first place.

Have the AI design the app. Pass it off to CI/CD testing and compile it. Send to a profiling step. AI profile analysis. Hot point identification. Return to AI to reiterate. Repeat.

Re: Your brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a nice anecdote, and I agree with the sentiment - skill development comes from practice. It's tempting to see using AI as free lunch, but it comes with a cost in the form of skill atrophy. I reckon this is even the case when using it as an interactive encyclopedia, where you may lose some skill in searching and aggregating information, but for many people the overall trade off in terms of time and energy savin…

If the computer was the bicycle for the mind, then perhaps AI is the electric scooter for the mind? Gets you there, but doesn't necessarily help build the best healthy habits. Trade offs around "room to do more of other things" are an interesting and recurring theme of these conversations. Like two opposites of a spectrum. On one end the ideal process oriented artisan taking the long way to mastery, on the other end…

I’ve also noticed that I’m less effective at research, but I think it’s our tools becoming less effective over time. Boolean doesn’t really work, and I’ve noticed that really niche things don’t surface in the search results (on Bing) even when I know the website exists. Just like LLMs seem lazy sometimes, search similarly feels lazy occasionally.

Re: Your brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant

#347
post #270
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My "actual job" isn't to write code, but to solve problems. Yes, and there's often a benefit to having a human have an understanding of the concrete details of the system when you're trying to solve problems. > That has increasingly shifted to "just" reviewing code It takes longer to read code than to write code if you're trying to get the same level of understanding. You're gaining time by building up an understan…

> It takes longer to read code than to write code if you're trying to get the same level of understanding. You're gaining time by building up an understanding deficit. That works for a while, but at some point you have to go burn the time to understand it. This is true whether an AI wrote the code or a co-worker, except the AI is always on hand to answer detailed questions about the code, do detailed analysis, and ru…

What industry are you working in?

Re: Your brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may be early but they’re not wrong.

self-driving cars are only 5 years away, just like 10 years ago

"Airplanes are only 5 years away, just like 10 years ago" --Some guy in 1891.

Never use your phrase to say something is impossible. I mean there are driverless Waymo's on the street in my area so your statement is already partially incorrect.

Re: Your brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant

#349
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the computer was the bicycle for the mind, then perhaps AI is the electric scooter for the mind? Gets you there, but doesn't necessarily help build the best healthy habits. Trade offs around "room to do more of other things" are an interesting and recurring theme of these conversations. Like two opposites of a spectrum. On one end the ideal process oriented artisan taking the long way to mastery, on the other end…

> then perhaps AI is the electric scooter for the mind I have a whole half-written blog post about how LLMs are the cars of the mind. Massive externalities, has to be forced on people, leads to cognitive/health issues instead of improving cognition and health.

Cars didn't have to be forced on people. They were adopted enthusiastically.

Re: Your brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant

#350
post #98

This seems to confirm my feeling when using AI too much. It's easy to get started, but I can feel my brain engaging less with the problem than I'm used to. It can form a barrier to real understanding, and keeps me out of my flow. I recently worked on something very complex I don't think I would have been able to tackle as quickly without AI; a hierarchical graph layout algorithm based on the Sugiyama framework, using…

> It's easy to get started

Funny - that's the hard part for me. I have yet to figure out what to use it for, since it seems to take longer than any other method of performing my tasks. Especially with regards to verifying for correctness, which in most cases seems to take as long or longer than just having done it myself, knowing I did it correctly.

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