> Across studies, participants with higher trust in AI and lower need for cognition and fluid intelligence showed greater surrender to System 3

So the smart get smarter and the dumb get dumber?

Well, not exactly, but at least for now with AI "highly jagged", and unreliable, it pays to know enough to NOT trust it, and indeed be mentally capable enough that you don't need to surrender to it, and can spot the failures.

I think the potential problems come later, when AI is more capable/reliable, and even the intelligentsia perhaps stop questioning it's output, and stop exercising/developing their own reasoning skills. Maybe AI accelerates us towards some version of "Idiocracy" where human intelligence is even less relevant to evolutionary success (i.e. having/supporting lots of kids) than it is today, and gets bred out of the human species? Maybe this is the inevitable trajectory: species gets smarter when they develop language and tool creation, then peak, and get dumber after having created tools that do the thinking for them?

Pre-AI, a long time ago, I used to think/joke we might go in the other direction - evolve into a pulsating brain, eyes, genitalia and vestigial limbs, as mental work took over from physical, but maybe I got that reversed!

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RodgerTheGreat 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I think everyone who believes that they can personally resist the detrimental psychological effects of exposure to LLMs by "remaining aware" or "being careful", because they have cultivated an understanding of how language models work, is falling into precisely the same fallacy as people who think they can't be conned or that marketing doesn't work on them.

Don't kid yourself. If you use this junk, it's making you dumber and damaging your critical thinking skills, full-stop. This is delegation of core competency. You may feel smarter, or that you're learning faster, of that you're more productive, but to people who aren't addicted to LLMs it sounds exactly like gamblers insisting they have a foolproof system for slots, or alcoholics insisting that a few beers make them a better driver. Nobody outside the bubble is impressed with the results.

	▲	thesumofall 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I fully agree that it’s close to impossible to not eventually fall into the trap of overrelying on them. However, it’s also true that I was able to do things with them that I would never have done otherwise for a lack of time or skill (all sorts of small personal apps, tools, and scripts for my hobbies). Maybe it’s a bit similar to only reading the comment section in a newspaper instead of the news? They will introduce you to new perspectives but if you stop reading the underlying news you’ll harm your own critical thinking? So it’s maybe a bit more grey than black & white?
	▲	paseante 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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