> People have done this work by hand for years and years, and now when they've been using LLMs to do it 5x faster for a couple of years, suddenly they'd be unable to work the traditional way?

Yes. Not completely unable all at once, but they certainly get worse at it fast.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1...

Losing skills due to over-reliance on technology is not a new phenomenon and not exclusive to LLM use, but they of course exacerbate it by so pervasively touching so many areas.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gps-weakens-m...

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streetfighter64 a day ago | parent [-]

You take a clockmaker who's used to working with hand-operated lathes, mills etc. and let him work for a few years using CNC versions. For sure he'll probably be worse at using the traditional machines when he comes back to them, but that doesn't mean he's any dumber or worse at making clocks. He's just out of practice, same as if he'd have spent a few years staffing a convenience store or anything else.

That seems to be precisely what your study shows as well, though I only read the summary. Say the AI lowered the endoscopists' workload by (for illustration) 20%, so they got 20% less practice per unit of time, which made them have a performance that was 20% worse in the trial. I would expect the same to happen if they got assigned to do paperwork for 20% of their time as well.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, perhaps we're in agreement here, I'm just clarifying my point.

There's a famous talk about the importance of knowing when to use which level of automation, and maintaining currency at all levels you expect to need to use: https://youtube.com/watch?v=5ESJH1NLMLs

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rootnod3 a day ago | parent | next [-]

That only works because the clockmaker had the manual experience to begin with and only needs to remember to get back into the groove. If however he had always only worked with CNC machines the story would be very different.

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streetfighter64 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm not convinced that's true. If you have experience driving an automatic car with lane assist, you'll have an easier time driving a 1980s manual car than somebody with no driving experience at all.

Likewise, the machinist still knows the principles of construction even if he's only used CNC machines. The endoscopist still knows the principles of colonoscopy even if he's only done it with AI assistance.

Just anecdotally, back when I took courses in assembler and logic circuits, there seemed to be no great difference in success between people like myself that had previous experience with that, and people who'd at most done some high-level scripting.

If you have enough curiosity I doubt using AI will be a roadblock to true understanding, just like high-level programming languages weren't.

	▲	latexr 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> If you have enough curiosity That’s a gigantic “if”. Anything can become a positive in the right hands, but we have to consider the societal impact of broadly available tools.

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latexr a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Analogies with physical tools don’t work well for LLMs because the former enable you to do things you couldn’t before, regardless how much you train and learn. A microscope and a needle allow us to see and work with precision beyond our human physical limitations. Furthermore they don’t make decisions, you are in control the whole time.

The talk looks interesting, thank you. I’ve added it to my list to watch later.