531–540 of 589 posts
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Delegation of intelligence? So one party gets more stupid for the other to be smart?
Yes, just like moving into management. So we'll get a generation of programmers who get to turn prematurely into the Pointy-Haired Boss.
A few things to note. 1. This is arxiv - before publication or peer review. Grain of salt.[0] 2. 18 participants per cohort 3. 54 participants total Given the low N and the likelihood that this is drawn from 18-22 year olds attending MIT, one should expect an uphill battle for replication and for generalizability. Further, they are brain scanning during the experiment, which is an uncomfortable/out-of-the-norm experi…
It’s also worth noting that this was specifically about the effects of ChatGPT on users’s ability to write essays: which means that if you don’t practice your writing skills, then your writing skills decline. This doesn’t seem to show that it is harmful just that it does not induce the same brain activity that is observed in other essay writing methods. Additionally, the original paper uses the term “cognitive debt“…
Writing is an important form of learning and this clearly shows LLM assisted writing doesn’t provide that benefit.
A few things to note. 1. This is arxiv - before publication or peer review. Grain of salt.[0] 2. 18 participants per cohort 3. 54 participants total Given the low N and the likelihood that this is drawn from 18-22 year olds attending MIT, one should expect an uphill battle for replication and for generalizability. Further, they are brain scanning during the experiment, which is an uncomfortable/out-of-the-norm experi…
Why would people publish a research with low population size?
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Imagine that when you deploy you have an LLM that regenerates code based on your specs, since code is fungible as long as it fits the spec. Keeping in mind that I have seen hundreds to thousands of production errors in applications with very high coverage test suites? How many production errors would you expect to see over 5 years of LLM deployments.
Maybe more, but agents can also respond to errors much more quickly, and agents have the ability to manage small staged rollouts with monitoring to catch an issue before it goes global, so your actual downtime will be much better at the same time that you're producing code way faster.
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Except that (1) the other party doesn't become smart, (2) the one who delegates doesn't become stupid, it just loses the opportunity to become smarter when compared to a human who'd actually do the work.
You're in denial. (1) The other party keeps learning, (2) the article cites evidence showing that heavy AI use causes cognitive decline.
The most harmful myth in all of education is the idea that you need to master some basic building blocks in order to move on to a higher level. That really is just a noticeable exception. At best you can claim that it's difficult for other people to realize that your new way solves the problem, or that people should really learn X because it's generally useful.
I don't see the need for this kind of compulsory education, and it's doing much more harm than good. Bodybuilding doesn't even appear as a codified sport until well after the industrial revolution, it's not until we are free of sustenance labor that human intelligence will peak. Who would be happy with a crummy essay if humans could learn telekinesis?
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We are literally witnessing the skills split right in front of our eyes: (1) people who are able to understand the concepts deeply, build a mental model of it and implement them in code at any level, and (2) people who outsource it to a machine and slowly, slowly lose that capability. For now the difference between these two populations is not that pronounced yet but give it a couple of years.
We're just moving up the abstraction ladder, like we did with compilers. I don't care about the individual lines of code, I care about architecture, code structure, rigorous automated e2e tests, contracts with comprehensive validation, etc. Rather than waste a bunch of time pouring over agent PRs I just make them jump over extremely high static/analytic hurdles that guarantee functionality, then my only job is to ide…
[1]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.11817
[2]: https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-o...
[3]: https://publichealthpolicyjournal.com/mit-study-finds-artifi...
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You're in denial. (1) The other party keeps learning, (2) the article cites evidence showing that heavy AI use causes cognitive decline.
The evidence it cites is that paper from 3 months ago claiming your brain activates less while prompting than actually writing an essay. No duh, the point is that you flex your mental muscles on the tasks AI can't do, like effective organization. I don't need to make a pencil to write. The most harmful myth in all of education is the idea that you need to master some basic building blocks in order to move on to a hig…
> Who would be happy with a crummy essay if humans could learn telekinesis?
I'm glad that's not the professional consensus on education, at least for now. And "telekinesis," really?
Anecdote here, but when I was in grad school, I was talking to a PhD student i respected a lot. Whenever he read a paper, he would try to write the code out and get it working. I would take a couple of months but he could whip it up in a few days. He explained to me that it was just practice and the more you practice the better you become. He not only coded things quickly, he started analyzing papers quicker too and…
We are literally witnessing the skills split right in front of our eyes: (1) people who are able to understand the concepts deeply, build a mental model of it and implement them in code at any level, and (2) people who outsource it to a machine and slowly, slowly lose that capability. For now the difference between these two populations is not that pronounced yet but give it a couple of years.
Meanwhile my main use cases for AI outside of work: - Learning how to solder - Learning how to use a multimeter - Learning to build basic circuits on breadboxes - learning about solar panels, mppt, battery management system, and different variations of li-on batteries - learning about LoRa band / meshtastic / how to build my own antenna And every single one of these things I've learned I've also applied practically t…
As someone who does these things, I am curious to know how and why you would choose AI. Working these from text seems to be the hardest way I could think to learn them. I've yet to encounter a written description as to what it feels like to solder, what a good/bad job actually looks like, etc. A well shot video is much better at showing you what you need to do (although finding one is getting more and more difficult)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We are literally witnessing the skills split right in front of our eyes: (1) people who are able to understand the concepts deeply, build a mental model of it and implement them in code at any level, and (2) people who outsource it to a machine and slowly, slowly lose that capability. For now the difference between these two populations is not that pronounced yet but give it a couple of years.
That reminds me of back when 12,500 years ago I could really shape a flint into a spear head in no time. Took me seasons to learn that skill from the Masters. Then Sky Gods came and taught people metal-fire. Nobody knows how to really chip and carve a point any more. They just cast them in moulds. We are seeing a literal split of skills in front of our eyes. People who know how to shape rocks deeply. And people who j…
This reminds me of back 11,500 years ago, when people used to worship the sharper or bigger pieces of obsidian. They felt the biggest piece would win them the biggest hunt.
They forgot that the size of the tool mattered less than mastery of the hunt. Why the best hunter could take down a moving mattress with just the right words, string and a cliff.