Is ChatGPT Making You Stupid? (theconversation.com)
- Reference: 0178483164
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/07/27/1818251/is-chatgpt-making-you-stupid
- Source link: https://theconversation.com/is-chatgpt-making-us-stupid-255370
> Generative AI tools don't just retrieve information; they can create, analyze and summarize it. This represents a fundamental shift: Arguably, generative AI is the first technology that could replace human thinking and creativity.
>
> That raises a critical question: Is ChatGPT making us stupid...?
>
> [A]s many people increasingly delegate cognitive tasks to AI, I think it's worth considering what exactly we're gaining and what we are at risk of losing.
"For many, it's replacing the need to sift through sources, compare viewpoints and wrestle with ambiguity," the article argues, positing that this "may be [3]weakening their ability to think critically , solve complex problems and engage deeply with information."
But in a section titled "AI and the Dunning-Kruger effect," he suggests "what matters isn't whether a person uses generative AI, but how. If used uncritically, ChatGPT can lead to intellectual complacency." His larger point seems to be that when used as an aid, AI "can become a powerful tool for stimulating curiosity, generating ideas, clarifying complex topics and provoking intellectual dialogue.... to augment human intelligence, not replace it. That means using ChatGPT to support inquiry, not to shortcut it. It means treating AI responses as the beginning of thought, not the end."
He believes mass adoption of generative AI has "left internet users at a crossroads. One path leads to intellectual decline: a world where we let AI do the thinking for us. The other offers an opportunity: to expand our brainpower by working in tandem with AI, leveraging its power to enhance our own." So his article ends with a question — how will we use AI to make us smarter?
Share your own thoughts and experiences in the comments. Do you think your AI use is making you smarter?
[1] https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1207745
[2] https://theconversation.com/is-chatgpt-making-us-stupid-255370
[3] https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/academic-integrity-and-human-cognitive-development-of-learners/358898
Yes (Score:3)
Nt
Re: (Score:2)
I dun need no AI to get stupid.
Interacting with most of the world already suffices.
Re: (Score:2)
> I dun need no AI to git stupid.
> Interacting with most of the world already suffices.
FTFY
Nah (Score:2)
Facebook's already got prior art in this department.
Plus, I don't think the normies are using ChatGPT yet. If it doesn't have short format vertical videos, their limited attention span won't allow it.
Re: (Score:2)
ChatGPT was built from the ground up and marketed to appeal to Normies, They're happily forking out $20/mo to get the "better" AI and the phrase "ChatGPT says" is appearing in all kinds of forums
I think the constant threat of homelessness (Score:1)
If literally anything in your life goes wrong and the intense amounts of stress that modern Life has is probably having a much much larger impact than some computer software.
The effect of stress on intelligence and thinking is extremely well researched and extremely well understood. Human beings aren't meant to be fearing for their lives basically every moment. So having 60% of your population one paycheck away from homelessness is a problem.
But sure let's freak the fuck out about AI.
Re: (Score:1)
Life on the planet in general is better now for more people than it ever has been in human history. If 60% of the population is a paycheck away from homelessness (I doubt this is even close to true, but you've provided no source to argue with) it's because they're bad with money and are spending more than they need to.
Somehow average intelligence increased during all of the decades when people were much worse off than they are now. Were the previous generations that lived through a decade long depression
Re: (Score:3)
> If 60% of the population is a paycheck away from homelessness (I doubt this is even close to true, but you've provided no source to argue with)
Since it's kinda on-brand for this discussion, ChatGPT says 53–62% of working class Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck. Now, that doesn't mean you end up homeless after one missed mortgage payment, but it is really hard to get back on the treadmill if you've suffered a major loss of income. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I was laid off during the Great Recession, couldn't find anything else that paid nearly what I needed and had to short-sell my home.
> it's because they're bad with money and are spending more than they need to.
Usually people don't lose their homes
Re: (Score:2)
> Now, that doesn't mean you end up homeless after one missed mortgage payment, but it is really hard to get back on the treadmill if you've suffered a major loss of income.
Yeah, I think that depends a lot on the person and how they live their life.
In June 2013, I quit my job, packed up my shit into my Jeep and moved 5000 miles from one side of the continent to the other, to a state and city where I didn't know a soul. Even as a 43 year old man, I was able to find a new job that September, making more or less the same as the job I quit. All it took was posting my resume on monster.com and waiting for someone to contact me.
It was a contract job that lasted a year. Then I was un
Re: (Score:2)
I'm very sorry to hear about your diagnosis.
Your advice about living below one's means is spot-on.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks.
Just to continue the thought.....my vehicle is 18 years old.
Could I buy a new vehicle? Sure. I could buy anything I could reasonably want, and a surprising amount of stuff I unreasonably want. And pay cash too.
But you know how you DON'T get ahead? Buying everything you want. Especially expensive things that you want. Double especially depreciating assets that you want.
I have owned exactly ONE brand new car in my 54 years on Earth. It's the 18 year old one I'm currently driving. I've owned exactly tw
The number of working homeless is skyrocketing (Score:2)
That's people with full-time jobs and no homes.
We have had 50 years of non-stop automation mostly in factories and we're about to do that same thing to White collar work.
The ruling class are dependent on consumers to maintain their wealth and power and they damn well know it and they damn well don't like it.
Guys like Peter thiel and Elon Musk are hard at work, I mean as hard as any of those fuckers ever work, to create a techno-feudal hellscape where they continue to be God Kings and the rest of
Re: (Score:2)
I will say that I do agree with this.
Automation (and the AI that controls it with computer vision) is going to be the death of the blue-collar worker. What'll be left is a group of post-grads who check a bank of monitors constantly, and tweak the program that drives a screw or something, and otherwise, there's nobody left. They'll be making a ton (probably), and sit around for their shift.
Down the road, you won't even go to the store yourself... you use an app, and a robot gets your groceries, and a robot
So about 2 billion people live comfortably (Score:2)
There are 8 billion people on this planet. Mathematically life is actually worse.
We have more than enough of everything but we also still have a ruling class and without the constant threat of death by starvation you can't really maintain a ruling class.
And because we grew up with a ruling class we don't want to let it go because it was there when we were 12 so it better be there when we're 60 fucking five.
Of course you're also ignoring the fact that our civilization does not need to continue to
Re:I think the constant threat of homelessness (Score:4)
I think you're a bit over generalizing and/or being dramatic here.
If ANYTHING in your life goes wrong? Really?
I've got terminal cancer and I am about to lose my job. That's a lot going wrong right there. A lot of stress too. I'm in zero danger of becoming homeless.
For me to become homeless, a LOT would have to go wrong, and rather quickly too.
I'd have to lose access to disability payments, both from Social Security ($49K/year) and from my private policy ($59K/year), $108K/year total.
My 48 year old wife would have to lose her job AND be unable to find another one anytime in the next few years, before we burned through all our savings.
We would have to burn through some $1.7M in assets, somehow (spending, taxation, inflation, etc.) in the next 1-2 years.
Somehow, all of that would have to happen, before we used some of our savings to just pay off the $350K or that we owe on our house, leaving us with maybe $50K/year in living expenses.
I just don't see homelessness in my future, especially since I've only got 1-2 years left in my future.
But I've been homeless, twice. It isn't the worst thing in the world and you can recover from it too. It was certainly less of a problem than terminal cancer is, especially at 54 years old.
Re: (Score:3)
> A lot of stress too. I'm in zero danger of becoming homeless.
Rsilvergun tends to deal in half-truths. It's entirely possible for someone with a less established financial situation to end up losing their home, but losing one's home does not necessarily lead to homelessness in the sense of "you'll be shitting on the sidewalks of San Francisco" . More often than not, as long as someone is still able to maintain some sort of gainful employment, they'll just have to downsize to something more affordable.
I'd call his statement "truth adjacent" (as ChatGPT is fond of putt
Re: (Score:2)
What he said: "having 60% of your population one paycheck away from homelessness is a problem."
What you said a couple comments later: "More often than not, as long as someone is still able to maintain some sort of gainful employment, they'll just have to downsize to something more affordable"
Here's what's wrong with that idea: Most people don't own. They are renters. Most of them are living paycheck to paycheck. They cannot afford first+deposit if they find themselves without a place to live. Yes, for peopl
Re: (Score:2)
> It's true that there are some interim steps between unemployed barista and crackwhore, but it's absolutely true that people living paycheck to paycheck due to an inadequate minimum wage and hostile housing market where most property management companies are doing credit checks and charging you for the privilege of having what is increasingly equal to a social credit score maintained and verified are going to have a very difficult time becoming rehomed.
It's obviously location dependent. Even where I live in deep red Florida, minimum wage is presently at $13/hour and even no-skill jobs start higher than that (usually around $15/hr). A studio apartment starts at between $800-$900/mo, which is doable on $15/hr, though you're not going to have much left over.
I'm not saying that's an ideal situation to be in, but as long as someone is willing and able to work they're not ending up on the streets. Now I'll totally agree our social safety nets suck when it co
Re: (Score:2)
Not to mention that people can work with others to improve their standing. Get roommates or a girlfriend/boyfriend to share expenses with, etc.
The problem, more often than not, is that people want to live a lifestyle that they simply cannot afford. If they are willing to accept reality and compromise on some things, they could do decently well.
Re: (Score:2)
That makes sense, thanks.
I first became homeless when I was in 7th grade. I had dipshit parents who couldn't make a financially responsible decision if their lives depended on it.
After moving all our shit to the curb, under the direction of the local sheriff's dept, my dad got a u-haul truck and we put everything in there. It stayed in there for the two weeks or so that we lived in a motel. Then we moved into a house out in the middle of fucking nowhere, thus beginning what my siblings and I called "the dar
You're not living paycheck to paycheck (Score:2)
You're not part of that 60%. You had a long successful life, or at least a very short very very successful life.
You represent the top 10% of the economy. The problem is people are bad at math so they don't understand that having a few million bucks in an account and some social security and some kind of pension means that they're in that 10%. Everybody thinks being in the top 10% means you're a Rockefeller.
Good luck with your diagnosis. Cancer sucks.
Re: (Score:2)
There was not anything about 60% in his opening sentence, which is what I was responding to.
Re: (Score:3)
> You're not part of that 60%. You had a long successful life, or at least a very short very very successful life.
You know what really helps? I mean, REALLY helps? Getting married and staying married. You can easily double household income while only marginally increasing household expenses.
If you make quality a selection AND have some discipline, you can live on one person's salary and bank the other. That's HUGE. Doubling up on income and living well below your means is an easy path to "success".
The house we have been living for the past 12 years currently has a 15 year mortgage with a monthly that is less than 5% o
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry to hear that, @registration_sucks
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks, but it's ok.
I would not even really care if I didn't have a 9 year old child. That's the part that sucks. I've got little confidence in my wife's parenting ability. I think the odds of her raising him to be a loser are very high.
All I can do is leave him a lot of money in a trust and a book of advice and hope for the best.
Re: (Score:2)
Your numbers are off.
The Federal Reserve reported that 54% of Americans have sufficient savings to cover three months of expenses, and that 39% live paycheck to paycheck. [1]https://econofact.org/factbrie... [econofact.org]
If you're going to promote your doomsday theories, at least get the facts right! Oh but wait, then the news wouldn't be so dramatic, so never mind.
[1] https://econofact.org/factbrief/is-there-a-consensus-that-a-majority-of-americans-are-living-paycheck-to-paycheck
Re: (Score:2)
While true ("Fear is the mind-killer"), AI is a factor, because it makes people think they found real answers. AI often delivers answers that lack important aspects or hallucinations. Hence people get even more sure in their pseudo-understanding and actually understand even less.
Is this even a question? (Score:2)
Getting into the habit of offloading research, analysis, and even clarification of a question to a third party and parroting the response leaves you at least as stupid as when you started, and perhaps stupider with a flawed response.
I would call it the"Blinkist effect". If the author took 300 pages to make a point, even if 150 are fluff, you still lose fidelity and understanding when you shrink it further. People who subscribe to those services come away "sort of" getting it - enough to hold court in conver
Re: (Score:2)
It is also present in the "yes-men effect" where if you surround yourself with sycophants (and ChatGPT us programmed to emulate one as far as possible), you lose connection to reality over time and your decisions get worse and worse. Can often be observed in authoritarian leaders in politics and enterprises.
It certainly has that capacity (Score:4, Interesting)
I gave it two prompts this morning on topics in my field, and it gave me 1000 words each.
Mostly accurate with a few small errors. Since it was my field, I caught them.
If I were a student looking for a fast way out of an assignment, I likely would not know enough to catch them.
And if I were a student looking for a fast way out, I probably would also not bother to do the critical thinking needed to vet the results.
It probably makes low effort learners march in place.
It probably does nothing to people who bank on their own originality and abilities to analyze, evaluate and synthesize.
Seems to have some value in asking here is my work, did I miss anything? And further evaluating.
As you might with a colleague or editor.
But take everything with a grain of salt.
Re: (Score:2)
> It probably makes low effort learners march in place.
It does. And even regress. I have observed that while teaching a coding class.
> It probably does nothing to people who bank on their own originality and abilities to analyze, evaluate and synthesize.
I have observed that as well in my IT security lectures. Advanced students stay away from LLMs and only ask if they are stuck or as a last step to verify. Hence we are not bringing up a generation of incompetents (at least in CS), but the gap between the competent and the incompetent is getting larger.
Old argument. (Score:2)
People have been saying this crap since the printing press was created.
Do printed books make us stupid?
Do newspapers make us stupid?
Do magazines make us stupid?
Do comic books make us stupid?
Does radio make us stupid?
Does TV make us stupid?
Does the Internet make us stupid?
Does texting make us stupid?
and now...
Does AI make us stupid.
Too late, AI, we've been stupid since we were born.
Our skills keep changing, but the only things that make us stupid are alcohol and drugs. Some would add attractive members of
Re:Old argument. (Score:4, Interesting)
Innate capability and not fulfilling one's potential by wasting time are really two separate causes of being 'stupid'.
To argue for the point, none of the inventions you mention have offered the promise of doing your thinking for you.
I can see both sides but definitely some people will never achieve depth on any subject if they're asking an LLM to present a surface level analysis.
Yet some may say if an LLM can do it that's not what Humans are best at.
Predicting this future witht any certainty seems like the most Dunning-Kruger possible by the authors.
Does it matter? (Score:2)
Is "critical thinking" an end in itself or a tool for finding solutions? If the latter, does AI do a better or worse job than I would do on my own?
This is another imagined danger or AI. The real dangers are in what AI can do that human's can't.
Take concerns about privacy. Now imagine an anti-abortion group using AI to scour databases for positive pregnancy test results. Then to check whether the person has an appointment for obstetrics care. If they don't, then going into action to stop them from getting a
Re: (Score:2)
You make decisions of all kinds, every day. Without the ability to critically reason about such decisions, we are much more apt to make terrible decisions that may have short term or, depending on the decision, long term effects on our future.
Re: (Score:2)
Not if we use AI to make the decisions for us that require critical thinking. I thought that was the point. There was a time when people needed to do arithmetic, now they have calculators. Being able to do it in your head is more a parlor trick than a real need.
Re: (Score:2)
> Is "critical thinking" an end in itself or a tool for finding solutions?
Clearly an end to itself. How else could you take control of your fate competently?
Re: (Score:2)
> Clearly an end to itself. How else could you take control of your fate competently?
I think the notion of "fate" is that you can't control it. But, if you could, that still leaves "critical thinking" as a means to an end, not an end in itself. And I am not sure people today care whether they have control all that much. They seem to be looking for "authorities" to take charge.
Re: (Score:2)
The ones that can see what tis going on, the ones that can fact-check, can make their own decisions. The others (around 85-90%) do not understand what they are doing and why things happen to them. Unfortunately, "authoritarian followers" (around 30%) and "conformists" (a.k.a. "sheep") make up the bulk of any population in this installment of the human race. That is why populism works: Too many dumb fucks.
As to "means to an end", while true on this level, the claim becomes meaningless because it is the only
100 IQ (Score:4, Insightful)
At university I interned for a therapist who specialized in identifying if people were legally qualified for government benefits for being too stupid. My job was to administer IQ tests. After training, I had to practice on people I knew before testing clients. My then girlfriend's sister tested at almost exactly 100 IQ (104). She wasn't too dumb, but she certainly wasn't bright. Only upon later did I realize that she was smarter than over HALF of the population. Truly frightening. All of this is to say: I do not think ChatGPT is making people more stupid. People already are stupid, and if anything the stupidity is infecting ChatGPT. Stupid people using it are also making it more stupid, not the other way around.
Re: (Score:3)
Your realisation was wrong - she was smarter than maybe a quarter of the population. The majority is about as smart as she is. So, with that in mind, are you still convinced that you are smarter?
Re: (Score:2)
You misunderstand how IQ works. 100 is the median IQ, which means that half are lower, half are higher.
[1]https://medium.com/@mike.s.cha... [medium.com]
[1] https://medium.com/@mike.s.chambers/iq-distribution-in-the-united-states-and-more-0e76f910abe7
Re: (Score:2)
I think you're misinterpreting dunkelfalke's point, although your statement is technically correct (the best kind of correct...).
[1]IQ falls along a bell curve, with 68% of people possessing IQs between 85 and 115 [iqtest-free.org]. The question boils down to - is there really a practical, noticeable difference between an IQ of 104 and an IQ of 100 (or 95, or 112)? Or do differences only seem apparent when the gap gets larger - say 100 versus 150?
[1] https://iqtest-free.org/articles/iq-bell-curve
Re: (Score:2)
dunkelfalke should say what he means. If he means a quarter of people are *significantly* less smart, fine. That was not what he said.
Re: (Score:2)
And fail. This is a Gaussian curve, 100 is the middle value, 104 is smarter than 55% or so. Yes, some will be close, but many, not so much.
Re: (Score:2)
Sometimes, people with high IQs can also be incredibly stupid, making the situation even worse!
Re: (Score:2)
Definitely. High IQ is basically just ability to handle more complexity. It does not imply wisdom. It does not imply accurate self-evaluation or a realistic view of reality, and it most certainly does not include the quality of the decisions to think about something or not. Hence many high IQ people are even more selectively blind that others, some cannot even do any generalized application of Intelligence at all because they do not notice that would be a good idea and many suffer from preconceptions they n
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. But stupid people that understand their limits can actually be pretty competent decision makers. What ChatGPT is doing is it makes it harder for people to understand where they actually stand and it makes it harder to exercise and improve their mental skills.
Nope (Score:2)
No. I'm getting stupid in the traditional ways: aging and laziness.
Carrot, Stick, Accountability, and Betteridge (Score:1)
> Is ChatGPT Making You Stupid?
Betteridge's law says no.
We raise humans, rear horses, train dogs, etc. all through some function of Carrots and Sticks. In humans we can even use the "belongingness" to the social group and mores, ethics, and "here's how it's done, kid."
> ...they can create...
That's hallucinations. LLMs do analyze large corpus of already-existing content, they do synthesize a subset, and they do format it in a unified way. However, they don't think, feel, or have consequences.
Carrots - don't work. The LLM doesn't care.
Sticks - don't work.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Although on "adult" I would add that age does not get you there and most people do not qualify.
If you post ChatGPT or Grok as your response (Score:2)
To anybody else on the internet as opposed to just typing your thoughts out yourself you should have a 14-day internet suspension
Not me, but yes (Score:2)
This is some stuff someone I've known since I was a teenager (more than 2/3 of a lifetime ago) who is well-regarded in several geek communities and buddies with influential nerds whose names are well-known to Slashdot, and some who are household names, said to me in a feceboot chat.
AMD has ARM as a major competitor, and ARM has multiple manufacturers that license the IP ( along with APPLE of all companies ) so don't be too sure about that.
AMD has started to concentrate on a next-gen x86 platform and they ul
Re: (Score:2)
Well, yes and no. That statement is a mixed bag and your analysis is partially wrong as well.
The thing were AMD is good at cooling is for chip-stacks. For example, they can pack a cache-chip on a CPU chip. That comes with an increased risk of hot-spots and makes cooling difficult, but they have that well under control. No connection to external cooling, that is just a 3rd party product. Hence the original statement is, say, 90% correct, but missing critical context (which is not much better than it being wr
Yes (Score:2)
Ugh.. you wrote a lot of words, and I didn't really want to read all that, so I asked my friend, whom I call CG3P0, and he summarized it and said the answer to your question is Yes.
Re: (Score:3)
> Ugh.. you wrote a lot of words, and I didn't really want to read all that, so I asked my friend, whom I call CG3P0, and he summarized it and said the answer to your question is Yes.
I'll take "no" with a spread of 5 points.
You'll be boss (Score:2)
PHBs have a reputation for stupidity, often well deserved.
AI promises to do all the grunt work, so it has the potential to make everyone into little more than a PHB.
Are grocery stores making you unable to farm? (Score:2)
Are calculators making you less able to do basic math in your head?
Do anti-lock brakes and lane assist make you less able to pay attention to the road?
Does religion or any other similar belief system (for example, those of the far-left or far-right) make it harder for people to think critically?
Well, yes. Or more precisely, they allow people who can't do those things well anyway to get by. The average American adult functions at a middle school level academically. (And I'm pretty sure socially, too.)
Take
Answer question headlines with (Score:3)
No. I use it to help parse horrible vendor documentation and to do syntax checking when programming. The time those two things wasted before LLMs was not adding any intelligence or value to my life.
Re: (Score:2)
Yup
I can get an answer from perplexity faster than I can get it by reading a 900 page Chinglish datasheet
And yes, I never trust the answer until I check it for accuracy
On the Topic of Loaded Questions . . . (Score:2)
Have you stopped beating your spouse yet?
No. (Score:2)
You were already stupid.
obviously, yes (Score:2)
People are lazy. It's an evolutionary imperative. Save energy. Stealing and killing is easier than ... anything.
Let other people grow the food and make the wine, then just kill them and eat the food and drink the wine. So easy!
It's in the Bible. That's what "king" David did on the weekends before he was King.
He had some time on his hands, because he was exiled for a few years.
Example given to show how this is baked into "humanity". If you can call it that. That story is from about 2500 years ago, give or ta
Like calculators make people worse at math (Score:2)
When I was in school, students weren't allowed to use calculators in math class. When my kids were in school, they were *required* to bring a calculator to math class. Were my kids worse at math than me? Not really. Can they multiply two-digit numbers in their head like I can? No. Is that a really important skill? probably not.
ChatGPT is similar. It will cause some skills to atrophy. But are those skills the important skills? Probably not.
Resisting the siren call of ease + efficiency (Score:1)
I feel AI technology is the most damaging to young people whose brains need lots of training doings things the long / harder way in order to develop healthy brain structure before using tools to make things easier. It is also damaging to people that WILL NOT develop good habits of double checking the information that they get to verify it's accuracy. It will also be damaging to people that previously had a habit of verifying information and then get lulled into a false sense of complacency that it is more a
Not gonna lie (Score:1)
I think AI messages are perfect for social media. Nothing was lost. Lots of people will live a stress free life not needing to read the filfth.
AI is a tool (Score:2)
It's a useful tool when it helps people find information and helps them understand
Lazy people misuse the tool and don't check the results for correctness. The often get what they deserve
The interesting question is natural selection (Score:1)
What effect on our gene pool will AI have. I feel like eventually only the people who can proof read and read everything with scepticism will get ahead. It might bring about some renaissance about how we news! Or maybe... just like how I never learn to spell some words because of my completion keyboard... we'll be brought farther into the dark.
Speaking oh which, I hear that Trump's penis has eyes in it! Isn't that weird!? [1]https://www.hollywoodreporter.... [hollywoodreporter.com]
[1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/south-park-trey-parker-matt-stone-trump-comic-con-1236328836/
No (Score:2)
It's like asking if GPS makes you stupid. It certainly alleviate a lot of thinking in the traditional pre-GPS thinking of reading a map and remembering a lot of the way...but it requires additional thinking as reaching the destination is no longer the primary challenge. Fairly there is o lying so much thinking a human can do. We use tools to compensate for our lack of physical abilities and tools for our lack of me talking abilities and tools only made us smarter because we need to understand how to use the
Because human intelligence abounds... (Score:2)
The evidence is everywhere....
Using it as an assistant is not stupefying (Score:1)
I think a student using AI instead of doing the work that stretches the brains is just cheating themself. But there's nothing wrong with giving a chatbot a few points and having it turn them into a bread and butter note, or a routine email. That's just delegating work that needs to be done but isn't very rewarding.
Using an AI to do dives into topics is often better than a series of searches. You can ask your questions in natural language, and it can answer follow-up questions without your having to pack eac
No (Score:2)
Most of my GPT prompts are asking for a critical review of something. I spend more time figuring out why the response is wrong than anything else. In this way I think going to a GPT for reviews makes me think more than I would otherwise.
No, it's not making frequent users stupid.... (Score:2)
They were already stupid, as evidenced by their frequent use. ðY
Very helpful tool, but double checking is hard (Score:2)
And used correctly, with critical thinking, can enhance productivity.
The biggest problem is that it doesn't cite its sources. That makes it quite difficult to double check whether what it generates is actually correct.
Whenever I tried to get ChatGPT or Gemini to cite sources, they came up with links that were 404, non-à propos, or just completely made up - they never even existed. I don't know why that is. It must be some limitation of how LLMs work. That means one will still need to do separate tradit
Re: (Score:1)
> Biden never fucked children.
How do you know?
Re: (Score:2)
Because if there was the slightest bit of evidence the republicans would talk about it 24x7.
Re: (Score:1)
Do you realize that a LOT of people have fucked children? I mean, a lot.
Many of those people were children at the time too!
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, I don't care if Trump, Biden, Obama, or any of the rest of that club fucked children.
Re: (Score:2)
You got me! Damn!
Re: (Score:2)
> Did you notice his handle?
No. I never notice user names, unless and until someone brings them to my attention for some reason.
Re: (Score:2)
[1]The QAnon part out loud: GOP smears political opponents as ‘pro-pedophile [msnbc.com]
Do the conservatives want to call off the pedophile-calling-contest they've been engaged in for the past 10 years?
The conspiracy theories they've gleefully and recklessly played into might come back to bite them? Where's that tiny violin store?
[1] https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/the-qanon-part-out-loud-gop-smears-political-opponents-as-pro-pedophile-137084485804
Re: (Score:2)
Loughborough University.
[1]https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
[1] https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/06/07/0121245/scientists-create-worlds-smallest-violin
Re: (Score:1)
> Wow! Trump really owns your mind, eh?
He is 0wning our country. There is nothing more important going on in the USA than the Cheeto Benito presidency. But you know what's really crazy about this Trump shit? Epstein didn't kill himself.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, he will be gone in a few years, and then some other asshole will be in charge.
Same as it ever was.
Re: (Score:2)
> I'm already a fucking idiot. Also, it is OK to fuck children as long as your donald j trump.
Does that deserve quoting against censor moderation? Or does it deserve Funny moderation? Too soon for kiddy porn jokes?
As it applies to the story, does the YOB even notice when he's being manipulated by a computer? Is there a generative AI built into his private soapbox or the cesspool formerly known as Twitter?
Need to start with a typing test if the YOB uses a keyboard? How many fingers does the YOB use? Or perhaps the YOB is using voice dictation? Sloppy pronunciation could certainly explain a lot of his
No (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never used it, so it's not making me stupid.
Re: No (Score:2)
2nd that
Re: No [to whsat question?] (Score:3)
Supposed to be the obligatory joke thread? But no citation of Betteridge?
Me? I think it's a deep and complicated philosophic topic, but the relevant starting joke is "It's the poor craftsman who blames his tools" extended to "... but it's the bankrupt craftsman who doesn't use the tools that allow him to compete in the market in the real world." ChatGPT is such a tool for certain kinds of paid work, and just ignoring the tool isn't going to make it go away. (Though I also like the extension "...but it's the
Re: (Score:2)
> But back to the original story... I am inclined to agree with him, which is why I'm trying to limit my use of AI tools and also trying to consider how such tools affect my approach to solving problems.
I don't think you need to worry too much, you have a sufficiently analytical approach that it's not likely to be a problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Now, the kids don't even have to read Huckleberry Finn or Romeo And Juliet... they can just have some AI summarize the book or play for them, and write the essay!
I suppose you could have it balance your checkbook... who's at fault when it fails to carry a one or something?
Do grade school kids need to know how to use an AI to look things up when they have a library of encyclopedia's to use?
The internet is good for looking up general things (recipes, that song you heard in some show), checking your email, kee
Re: No (Score:2)
Like the carter who stuck to horses in the face of automobiles? Or people who refused to use those newfangled computers?
You do you.
Re: (Score:2)
I simply have no use for it.
I mean, if someone can demonstrate some benefit to me, ok, maybe I'll give it a go, but I haven't seen that so far.
You responded to your own question (Score:1)
The article isn't about whether or not AI can make someone competent more efficient. It's whether or not it makes someone stupider. The answer should be obvious. Every task that we trust technology we makes us less intellectually capable. How many people can't do math without a calculator? How many need to use Google maps to find there way around town? Name a technology that replaced a human task and I'll show you how we aren't as good at them without the machine or software anymore
Re: (Score:2)
Except the question isn't whether WE, as a society are more stupid, but rather are YOU, specifically, more stupid.
Do YOU know how to do math without a calculator?
Do YOU know how to use a map?
I'm going to guess yes. So here are some examples of technology that you trust that have not made you less capable doing it "the old way". I'm guessing here, for you, for me, they certainly haven't.
Someone else here said that people were already morons. I agree. My guess is that if people can't use a map or do math,
Re: (Score:3)
Yep, basically the same here. I tried it a few times, concluded it was a clueless moron that could not even find original sources for many of its claims and lost interest. I did find one rare case where I use it once a month or so, namely when I search for something but do not know the correct term. For that, it works usually. Then I can do a real search with that term afterwards.
I do follow the misadventures others have with it with fascination though.
Re: (Score:2)
I've never used my brain, ergo I'm not becoming any dumber. Personally making me stupid, AI? I've installed Alpaca and added 4 models (mostly Qwen2 and Llama code). In the last 6 months, using AI (Perplexity, iAsk.ai, Deepseek, and my local AI installs) I've solved and answered a LOT of questions and theories and designs, experiments, chemical mixtures, etc I'd been thinking about for decades, and most of which required lots of research to answer. Most of it was just, I'm too busy most of the time, so just
Re: (Score:2)
The title is literally, "Is ChatGPT Making You Stupid?"
I answered "no". How is that possibly selfish?