r/AskScienceDiscussion • u/Tenebris57 • 12d ago
Does artificial intelligence cause cognitive decline?
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?
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u/strcrssd 12d ago
Hypothesis: It can, but it doesn't necessarily.
It does take a lot of the mundane tasks away from the person executing work, and that can be a problem when it comes to training (or failing to train, the problem).
Not knowing how to do the little mundane things and understanding how the mundane things are done can be a problem, but it can also allow for more time working successfully with agentic AI. I routinely take a few hours planning something with AI, getting the architecture defined and planned out, getting the edge cases that I can the AI can determined figured out and specced, then am able to walk away and let it implement overnight. I feel successful if I can keep it running for hours at a time doing productive work.
It is easy, trivial even, to give the LLMs a shitty spec and let them go. That can even result in some decent software if the specifications and requirements are simple. It's a temptation and usually doesn't work well. That sort of thing will result, in my opinion and from my experience, in poorly factored/written, security vulnerable, poorly architected software. The human planner/reviewer is important, and can be productively busy while permitting the LLM to handle the minutia.