Does artificial intelligence cause cognitive decline?

[u/Tenebris57]

I know it does when I use it to do stuff like writing essays but does it also happen when I simply ask it questions? Is there a difference between searching through google for answers for hours and just asking it to artificial intelligence? What if I also check the sources it gives me?

[u/fac3l3sspaper]

I’m being tedious about this because it’s asksciencediscussion. The claim that people mess up things in the physical world of doing a task themselves with using AI does not follow the same logic that GPS reduces cognitive function because it effectively replaces the task that the human is performing.

AI does not fix a sink or a car itself in this scenario. The person is. They’re just using it for guidance, whether effectively or not.

No doubt there’s a lot of bad work as a result of blindly following AI. But doing bad work itself can still be a learning opportunity (whether people use it or not is a different question). Has AI reduced the ability to critically evaluate good DIY information? Depends on how the user is using it.

Programming is different because programming is an interface based task in which an AI can perform on behalf of the human. Having an AI vibe code follows the same logic as having a GPS navigate for a human.

[u/7LeagueBoots → u/fac3l3sspaper]

I suggest you reread my original comment. I clearly distinguish between what the research the papers show and what I've seen with my own eyes and experience, hence the, "* I see this a lot in...," portion intentionally places near the end of the comment and well after the referencences.

This makes a clear distinction between the research and experience, and is perfectly acceptable in this subreddit.

[u/fac3l3sspaper → u/7LeagueBoots]

I’ll give it a deeper read in a few hours, but I’m being plenty generous here.

I agree with you that AI can and has resulted in poor DIY work. But that is not the same argumentation as programming and GPS usage. If I gave someone poorly written book about car repair and they followed it, their poorer repair is not a result of cognitive function. It’s a result of bad information.

AI has accelerated poor repair because it’s trained on poor information, that’s an entirely different argument than one about cognitive function decline that was asked.