Does this also explain what happens with middle and upper management? As people have moved up the ranks during the course of their careers, I swear they get dumber.
this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2025
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That was my first reaction. Using LLMs is a lot like being a manager. You have to describe goals/tasks and delegate them, while usually not doing any of the tasks yourself.
Fuck, this is why I'm feeling dumber myself after getting promoted to more senior positions and had only had to work in architectural level and on stuff that the more junior staffs can't work on.
With LLMs basically my job is still the same.
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My dad around 1993 designed a cipher better than RC4 (I know it's not a high mark now, but it kinda was then) at the time, which passed audit by a relevant service.
My dad around 2003 still was intelligent enough, he'd explain me and my sister some interesting mathematical problems and notice similarities to them and interesting things in real life.
My dad around 2005 was promoted to a management position and was already becoming kinda dumber.
My dad around 2010 was a fucking idiot, you'd think he's mentally impaired.
My dad around 2015 apparently went to a fortuneteller to "heal me from autism".
So yeah. I think it's a bit similar to what happens to elderly people when they retire. Everything should be trained, and also real tasks give you feeling of life, giving orders and going to endless could-be-an-email meetings makes you both dumb and depressed.
That's the Peter Principle.
Iβd expect similar at least. When one doesnβt keep up to date on new information and lets their brain coast it atrophies like any other muscle would from disuse.
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The obvious AI-generated image and the generic name of the journal made me think that there was something off about this website/article and sure enough the writer of this article is on X claiming that covid 19 vaccines are not fit for humans and that there's a clear link between vaccines and autism.
Neat.
Thanks for the warning. Here's the link to the original study, so we don't have to drive traffic to that guys website.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872
I haven't got time to read it and now I wonder if it was represented accurately in the article.
Thatβs a math article
Fixed. Thanks!
Thanks for pointing this out. Looking closer I see that that "journal" was definitely not something I want to be sending traffic to, for a whole bunch of reasons - besides anti-vax they're also anti-trans, and they're gold bugs... and they're asking tough questions like "do viruses exist" π€‘
I edited the post to link to MIT instead, and added a note in the post body explaining why.
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Microsoft reported the same findings earlier this year, spooky to see a more academic institution report the same results. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lee_2025_ai_critical_thinking_survey.pdf Abstract for those too lazy to click:
The rise of Generative AI (GenAI) in knowledge workflows raises questions about its impact on critical thinking skills and practices. We survey 319 knowledge workers to investigate 1) when and how they perceive the enaction of critical thinking when using GenAI, and 2) when and why GenAI affects their effort to do so. Participants shared 936 first-hand examples of using GenAI in work tasks. Quantitatively, when considering both task- and user-specific factors, a userβs task-specific self-confidence and confidence in GenAI are predictive of whether critical thinking is enacted and the effort of doing so in GenAI-assisted tasks. Specifically, higher confidence in GenAI is associated with less critical thinking, while higher self-confidence is associated with more critical thinking. Qualitatively, GenAI shifts the nature of critical thinking toward information verification, response integration, and task stewardship. Our insights reveal new design challenges and opportunities for developing GenAI tools for knowledge work.
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I wonder what social media does.
No wonder Republicans like it so much
So if someone else writes your essays for you, you donβt learn anything?
But does it cause this when when used exclusively for RP gooning sessions?
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You write essay with AI your learning suffers.
One of these papers that are basically "water is wet, researches discover".
Its so disturbing. Especially the bit about your brain activity not returning to normal afterwards. They are teaching the kids to use it in elementary schools.
I think they meant it doesn't return to non-AI-user levels when you do the same task on your own immediately afterwards. But if you keep doing the task on your own for some time, I'd expect it to return to those levels rather fast.
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cognitive decline.
Another reason for refusing those so-called tools... it could turn one into another tool.
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Heyyy, now I get to enjoy some copium for being such a dinosaur and resisting to use it as often as I can
You're not a dinosaur. Making people feel old and out of the trend is exactly one of the strategies used by big techs to shove their stuff into people.
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I just asked ChatGPT if this is true. It told me no and to increase my usage of AI. So HA!
relying on AI makes people stupid?
Who knew?
Anyone who doubts this should ask their parents how many phone numbers they used to remember.
In a few years there'll be people who've forgotten how to have a conversation.
I don't see how that's any indicator of cognitive decline.
Also people had notebooks for ages. The reason they remembered phone numbers wasn't necessity, but that you had to manually dial them every time.
And now, since you are the father of writing, your affection for it has made you describe its effects as the opposite of what they really are. In fact, [writing] will introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own. You have not discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; you provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will imagine that they have come to know much while for the most part they will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of really being so.
βa story told by Socrates, according to his student Plato
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