These research papers talking about AI leading to cognitive decline seem so asinine when certain people’s productivity has just skyrocketed under AI.
Sure the hand coding capabilities decline, but that’s replaced by thinking around the actually product or architecture.
A huge sect of new Linux users and Selfhosters are talking about how much AI has enabled them yet we’re still bringing up papers on cognitive decline that were written on models from 3-4 years ago when Claude Code didn’t even exist.
literally me, i started using ai to help me self host shit. i now know how to use docker and podman essentially even without AI. i’ve been wanting to do that for years but never had anyone to help me and it felt too overwhelming to me. similarly i now have some dotfiles set and in general i have a better system. specially for a lot of shit i know how to do but it’s fucking boring to do.
Those papers, and the most recent ones, all point to use of LLM’s as causing cognitive decline due to offloading problem solving.
Saying “they don’t even take into account this way more capable model that makes me able to solve problems way faster” is like saying research into cancer causing materials is bunk because they don’t take into account all the times I inject concentrated carcinogens directly into my testicles.
No one is saying using LLM’s slow you down. They’re saying that being slow was a feature not a bug and skipping it prevents long term learning. Is there a way to use LLM’s that improve learning? Maybe. My worry is that even if there is there is little real inventive to do so.
No. AI is simply too recent and evolves too quickly to be demonstrably anything.
The studies you refer to are mostly flawed, and most importantly not about software engineering, where I assure you the problem solving part is not diminished, simply shifted. Don’t let the memes that show people type “just do your best bro” into claude code influence you, they are just memes :)
Yeah even writing lead to cognitive loss, because now people don’t have to memorize everything.
It’s just fear for the future and for change. And this is probably the most massive change in human history since fire was discovered.
But don’t fear too much: the change is here and will stay, that’s the only sure thing
Edit: what I mean is that accepting the fact AI is here and won’t go away because we don’t like it is the path to start regulating it at government level and agreeing on ethical rules to use it. Just saying you are a bad person of you use it it’s like hiding under the sand. You lose.
Got something that has more than 18 participants split into 3 groups for a total sample size of 6 people per control group? Not to mention its focus on AI assisted essay writing, measuring cognitive debt (not decline), using EEG to infer performance of higher cognitive function, etc.
Except Torvalds is now a bad coder with AI.
AI use demonstrably leads to cognitive decline. Looks like we have a great example in Torvalds, outside of the research papers already released.
These research papers talking about AI leading to cognitive decline seem so asinine when certain people’s productivity has just skyrocketed under AI.
Sure the hand coding capabilities decline, but that’s replaced by thinking around the actually product or architecture.
A huge sect of new Linux users and Selfhosters are talking about how much AI has enabled them yet we’re still bringing up papers on cognitive decline that were written on models from 3-4 years ago when Claude Code didn’t even exist.
literally me, i started using ai to help me self host shit. i now know how to use docker and podman essentially even without AI. i’ve been wanting to do that for years but never had anyone to help me and it felt too overwhelming to me. similarly i now have some dotfiles set and in general i have a better system. specially for a lot of shit i know how to do but it’s fucking boring to do.
Those papers, and the most recent ones, all point to use of LLM’s as causing cognitive decline due to offloading problem solving.
Saying “they don’t even take into account this way more capable model that makes me able to solve problems way faster” is like saying research into cancer causing materials is bunk because they don’t take into account all the times I inject concentrated carcinogens directly into my testicles.
No one is saying using LLM’s slow you down. They’re saying that being slow was a feature not a bug and skipping it prevents long term learning. Is there a way to use LLM’s that improve learning? Maybe. My worry is that even if there is there is little real inventive to do so.
Learning has just shifted, you no longer have to think of syntax and lower level things, but more the architecture of the code.
Many devs stop writing code and just become architects later in their career, their brains don’t just wrot then because they “stop thinking”
I actually code way way more now than before AI, because it takes care of the shit I hate doing, and I can focus on the fun stuff
I could care less of what you think is asinine.
No. AI is simply too recent and evolves too quickly to be demonstrably anything.
The studies you refer to are mostly flawed, and most importantly not about software engineering, where I assure you the problem solving part is not diminished, simply shifted. Don’t let the memes that show people type “just do your best bro” into claude code influence you, they are just memes :)
that is … Debatable.
Yeah even writing lead to cognitive loss, because now people don’t have to memorize everything.
It’s just fear for the future and for change. And this is probably the most massive change in human history since fire was discovered.
But don’t fear too much: the change is here and will stay, that’s the only sure thing
Edit: what I mean is that accepting the fact AI is here and won’t go away because we don’t like it is the path to start regulating it at government level and agreeing on ethical rules to use it. Just saying you are a bad person of you use it it’s like hiding under the sand. You lose.
source?
One example.
Got something that has more than 18 participants split into 3 groups for a total sample size of 6 people per control group? Not to mention its focus on AI assisted essay writing, measuring cognitive debt (not decline), using EEG to infer performance of higher cognitive function, etc.