The other thing to note is "AI" is being used in place of LLMs. AI is a lot of things, I would be surprised to find out that generating images, video and audio would lead to cognitive decline. What I think LLMs might lead to is intellectual laziness, why memorize or remember something if the LLM can remember it type of thing.

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KoolKat23 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I'd say the framing is wrong. Do we call delivery drivers lazy because they take the highway rather than the backroads? Or because they drive the goods there rather than walk? They're missing out on all that traffic intersection experience.

Perhaps the issue of cognitive decline comes from sitting there vegetating rather applying themselves during all that additional spare time.

Although my experience has been perhaps different using LLM's, my mind still tires at work. I'm still having to think on the bigger questions, it's just less time spent on the grunt work.

	▲	jplusequalt 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		>Perhaps the issue of cognitive decline comes from sitting there vegetating rather applying themselves during all that additional spare time. The push for these tools is to increase productivity. What spare time is there to be had if now you're expected to produce 2-3X the amount of code in the same time frame? Also, I don't know if you've gotten outside of the software/tech bubble, but most people already spend 90% of their free time glued to a screen. I'd wager the majority of critical thinking people experience on a day to day basis is at work. Now that we may be automating that away, I bet you'll see many people cease to think deeply at all!

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mym1990 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I would argue that intellectual laziness can and will lead to cognitive decline as much as physical laziness can and will lead to muscle atrophy. It’s akin to using a maps app to get from point a to b but not ever remembering the route, even though someone has done it 100 times.

I don’t know the percentage of people who are still critically thinking while using AI tools, but I can first hand see many students just copy pasting content to their school work.

	▲	giancarlostoro 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Fully agree, I think the cognitive decline is probably over time. Look at old, retired people, how they go from feeling like a teenager, to barely remembering anything as an example.