ChatGPT and Grok both said I’m not so it must be true.

> Those using ChatGPT showed significantly less activity in networks tied to cognitive processing and attention compared to students who wrote without digital help or used only internet search engines.

Luckily Google and other search engines are closing part of the cognitive loophole by putting an AI summary at the top of all results.

In the age of misery of Stupidity (yes I use double of, bad grammar).

I'm convinced my high school French language classes were skewed away from learning useful skills and biased in favor of writing skills because it made it easier to test. The tests are running the show to the detriment of learning.

Educators need to push past outdated written tests and find new ways to assess skills. I suspect that AI could play a role for good in that.

This documentary from a few decades ago sorta covers what we can expect.

In my job I spend a lot of time convincing companies that they can save a lot of money on improving software performance. However, they all seem very reluctant to even go there. It is really weird because it has all the upsides and none of the downsides, and it doesn't take that much of an effort either based on the prior work I have done and the systems they show me that are in need of improvements. Recently one of them posted major losses because of a "mismatch" between customer needs and runrate or something, but I know that they are paying >$10K monthly for bloatware and "LLMs" that cannot scale. I wish I could convince them otherwise, but since they are stupid it's a waste of my time.

Most people are deeply stupid and that has always been the case. Education does nothing. The difference is that today, the stupid people are much more visible and louder. That does not mean there are more.

> Almost none could recall what they had written immediately after submitting their work.

Ummm... that's because they didn't write it. (And it's also not "their work".)

Drugs challenged society with addiction. Those who could avoid, or fight off, addiction continued, many were lost. Societal rules changed, as societies, not just species, evolve to resist challenge and continue to succeed.

Those who do NOT use AI heavily and keep up their own ability to solve problems will succeed over those who do not, in the long run. Parents will learn to restrict AI they way they fight "screen time" now, as they've always had to teach kids not to be lazy - a very default human choic

The problem is schools aren't adjusting correctly to new realities. What we need is a shift to in class work making up the bulk of grades so kids can't use AI and have to use their brains instead. Sending kids home with homework nowadays is more or less pointless if AI is just going to do it for them.

Seriously, it's hardly a surprise. Doing research and putting words together takes cogitation which stimulates the brain. A stimulated brain is a sharp brain. We've known this for decades, perhaps centuries.

The people in my workgroup lean heavily on ChatGPT and Copilot and the like because it's faster and easier, but I wonder if it's more effective. Is it faster only initially? After we've used these tools for a while, and our brains have atrophied, maybe we slow to the point where the time saved is a wash.

Where does this lead? Are we condemned to become Eloi?

AI and social media like tiktok is a fantastic thing for autocrats and dictators.

They allow to tell their subjects what to think and what to do.

Everyone thought the time of autocrats and dictators is done and tech companies made everyone wrong giving second life to food old feudalism...

... is blowing smoke up their own asses.

In the USA, there has been under investment in education and things that benefit society as a whole. Meanwhile China has invested heavily in education, sending their brightest students to the best universities all around the world.

One of these nations is growing and gaining influence globally, the other elected an orange clown as it’s president and is the butt of jokes the world over.

Speaking of stupid, if IQ peaked around 2012, then it wasn't LLMs that caused it, because they weren't around back then. However, 2012 coincides with the beginning widespread smartphone usage, particularly among high schoolers.

I don't know too much about the rest of the world but I can observe the US decline into an Idiocracy run by clowns and thugs with a compliant population which seems to only pay attention to "entertainment".

In the past the stupidity and entitlement didn't hurt us as much. Now with longer retirement, the entitlements have become a crushing burden on the young, particularly young parents. I'm not so sure it is screen time as much as lack of parent time. I would also argue it isn't women's education that causes falling birth rates, that's just a correlation. Longer life expectancy and fewer options for young men (fathers and husbands) causes women not to find suitable mates. Birth rates for men who have good careers and housing haven't changed.

This is just a theory, but I wonder if the basic premise of Idiocracy will burn itself out within the next generation. That basic premise was that more intelligent people tended to have fewer/no children while less intelligent people have many children. I think that has run its course and started to reverse.

There was probably some truth to this over the last 75 years or so. As safe and effective birth control first became available, it was the upper and then middle classes who got access first. Their family

Have you seen who's in the White House? Remember: he was voted in. Twice. That only happens in a nation with a widespread case of mental retardation.