Do you refuse to use a calculator or spreadsheet, because doing long hand division helps you exercise your mental muscle? Do you refuse to use a database, because it will make your memory weaker? Or, do you refuse to use a car, because it makes you less able to walk when the car is unavailable? No. Because the car empowers you to do something that, at the very least, takes a lot longer on foot.

People have worried with every single new technology that it will enfeeble the masses, rather than empower them, and yet in the end, we usually find ourselves better off.

The car seems like a great example of a technology with a lot of problematic side effects. Places that had a more measured adoption ended up a lot better than those that replaced all public transit with cars and routinely demolished neighborhoods to make space for bigger highways

Cars are an essential part of modern life, but the sweetspot for car adoption isn't on either of the extremes

I do refuse to use a car frequently, I’ll bike or walk because although it’s harder and sometimes scary, there are other times when it’s really great and I feel more connected to the world around me. Also more relaxed after the little bit of exercise.

Personally I also hurt my learning of trig identities and stuff because the symbolic algebra engine on my ti-89 was so good that I could rely on it instead of learning the material. Caught up to me in college with harder calc and physics classes.

For about 8y I biked for every possible local trip, usually daily. I wanted to reduce local pollution and get the exercise. It was rough in the wind and cold. I'd do it again if I could.

Sometimes I take breaks from the calculator and even review math videos because it's embarrassing when I can't help my kid with their homework.

Taking care in how and when we use AI seems very sensible. Just like we take care how often and how much refined sugar we eat, or how many hours we spend sedentary.

Long division (tilling fields, weaving cloth, whatever facile comparison this argument dredges up) doesn't define me as a creature, cognition does.

Actually, yea, I do a lot of mental calculations to avoid losing my edge on thinking about numbers. I avoid gps navigators for similar reasons.

But the analogy doesn’t actually hold up anyhow because the calculator and the navigator are deterministic. I can rely on their output.

LLMs have a probabilistic output that absolutely needs verification every time. I cannot trust them the same way I can trust a calculator.

> Do you refuse to use a calculator or spreadsheet, because doing long hand division helps you exercise your mental muscle

Yeah when I was learning in school we weren't allowed electronics for division, and I think I absolutely would be dumber if I had never done that

> People have worried with every single new technology that it will enfeeble the masses, rather than empower them, and yet in the end, we usually find ourselves better off.

If you're posting this from America, you're living in a society that is fatter than ever thanks to cars. So there's surely some nuance here, not every technology upgrade is strictly better with no downsides

I calculate tips and such in my head because I can do it faster than whipping out the calculator app on my phone and poking the numbers in.

I still memorize phone numbers. Hey, today that counts as "not using a database".

I think we are, in fact, getting dumber.

I play around with adding, subtracting, or multiplying license plate numbers. Does that count?

I am so rusty, that I just do add and subtract.

On the other hand, my grandparents, and father, could look at financial documents and do the calculations in their head.

People I know who stayed in finance longer than me, can crunch numbers rapidly.

I am around numerate people most of the time, so the occasions where I find I am the faster calculator around are jarring.

There are many conversations that go adrift because we can’t crunch numbers fast enough.

Is it a net loss to humanity in the face of the gains we obtained. Nope.

Is mental fitness of value to me, the same way physical fitness is of value to me? Yes, very much.

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