Everybody's Weirded Out by AI—Except the People Who Foist It on Us
Everybody's Weirded Out by AI–Except the People Who Foist It on Us
I argue that while industry and government push AI adoption, it is making society collectively dumber. Students rely on ChatGPT instead of thinking critically, leading to cognitive surrender. The technology floods us with derivative content and hallucinations, creating a feedback loop of model collapse. Instead of genuine progress, we face an artificial stagnation where no one understands how the systems actually work.
Instead of the government handicapping the most intelligent people to make them seem less intelligent, society is becoming ever more dominated by a tool that makes less intelligent people appear smarter, while still making society dumber overall.
- xnx
Blanket claims like "Everbody" are trivially falsifiable. I'm not "weirded out" by AI, and I'm not foisting it on anyone.
There's a strange vein of aggressive-denialism that anyone could find AI genuinely useful (bordering on miraculous) even if it hasn't yet cured cancer, led to 100% unemployment, solved nuclear fusion, etc.
- kenforthewin
> A study by MIT found that students who use AI to write show far less brain activity than those who used classic Google searching (with AI off) or those who used neither. Other studies find that students who use AI retain far less of the information that ends up in their writing, possibly as a result of “cognitive offloading” and “cognitive surrender.”
I'm unconvinced that AI will make us all dumber. In the public perception, at least among students, AI is viewed as a cheating tool. What kinds of students gravitate towards cheating tools to complete their coursework?
On the other hand, the opportunity for AI to act as a personal tutor, meeting you at your own skill and knowledge level, is limitless.
- metalman
There are a lot of people getting very weird while useing AI, another big bunch of people who hate AI, and of course AI itself is weird, but I have no direct contact with AI while it finds my web sites and sends me work through some process that remains opaque to me.
I have become quick to close any page that has strange gramar of phrasing, and no longer accept any claims or declarations that I cant verify indipendently.
Having always been very very picky about any media I consume, I find it easy to avoid
seeing anything that has been made useing AI.
The whole upshot for me has been to spend more time doing real stuff and making money, which attracts more people to spend time with me.
- sergiomattei
> But would it have improved my comprehension? The research says no.
I don’t know, I find myself doing things I would’ve never done before AI.
I find myself doing more projects outside of work.
I discover new problem domains and are less afraid of tackling the unknown.
I code in languages I don’t know and start learning how they work.
I can get anything explained to me, at any time, in a somewhat coherent manner, by a tutor that won’t get tired or annoyed.
Look— I’m not exactly thinking AI is free of criticism, but it’s definitely a revolution in access to information and at least to me that’s a big deal.
- lbrito
>The only field where people are being replaced wholesale is in computer programming, where AI is making leaps in capability.
I'll give the author a pass because he's not in the industry, but even an outsider looking closely enough would know that this is not true. Companies have been laying off while using AI as an excuse, but before AI it was the end of ZIRP, and before that it was something else.
Also the layoff peak was 2023.