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

Post by mannanj » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 4:20 AM UTC

duskdozer wrote: post #222

Madmallard wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[redacted because the replier is in the business of not telling the truth]

And your political views are clouding your judgment of what a proper response to disease is. If surgical masks are insufficient because people are getting Covid sitting in rooms with others re-breathing the same air for hours, then valid solutions are to remove the people from the environment, remove the hazard from the environment, or provide better means to protect people from the environment, not increase people's…

Post by greggoB » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 5:52 PM UTC

mannanj wrote: post #512

greggoB wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Noting that it is straw man to connect my argument with vaccine skepticism. I don't think you know what a straw man is [0] > Does that answer your question, and feel referential for you. No, lol? I was asking for you to cite a reference to a reputable source, not go on a whole Covid misinformation rant. To add, you still haven't demonstrated where/how the word "psychosis" supposedly came into popular use for any of…

You misrepresented my position to make it easier to attack. When I brought up the position(s) that people who asked questions or were curious about certain topics got shut down and labeled as having psychosis you responded with bringing is a representation of my position as vaccine skepticism. I remember hearing about psychosis in popular mainstream media. Look I can see you have a strong opinion and belief system ar…

Post by Capricorn2481 » Sun, Jan 25, 2026, 3:16 AM UTC

gogopromptless wrote: post #394

Capricorn2481 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It won't turn most people into architects. It will turn them into PMs That sounds awful. Every PM I've ever met, I did their job for them. They did nothing. And I've met some heavy hitter PMs with a lot of stripes and recommendations. The job of being a PM is over-exaggerated. It boils down to writing things down and bringing them up later. Something I ended up doing for them, because they didn't know enough to kno…

You've described PMs running circles around you and you still can't see it. They didn't need to praise you or pressure you. They seem to have all caught on that your button is let you feel smarter than them. You did their job, did a bunch of physical typing they would otherwise have to do themselves, and walked away thinking you won. Meanwhile they're pulling the same or greater comp, working half the hours, and "dri…

Post by Archer6621 » Mon, Jan 26, 2026, 5:30 PM UTC

chairmansteve wrote: post #151

Archer6621 wrote: post #112

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…

"I reckon this is even the case when using it as an interactive encyclopedia". Yes, that is my experience. I have done some C# projects recently, a language I am not familiar with. I used the interactive encylopedia method, "wrote" a decent amount of code myself, but several thousand lines of production code later, I don't I know C# any better than when I started. OTOH, it seems that LLMs are very good at compiling p…

Post by piyh » Tue, Jan 27, 2026, 1:02 AM UTC

wisty wrote: post #160

sdoering wrote: post #111

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…