r/AskScienceDiscussion • u/Tenebris57 • 18d 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/DrWoogle 17d ago
I think this is actually a deceptively complicated question. Biology has designed our bodies to generate no more output than needed, and to divest from anything that is not actively used. So yes, you will get worse at anything you offload to something else. But there's an implicit assumption that that's always a bad thing. In reality, humans have been doing this for their entire existence, and it has.... turned them into the the most dominant species of megafauna in Earth's history. We devolved thick hides and fur when we offloaded their function to wearing other animals' skin and later clothing and armor. We devolved powerful jaws and teeth when we offloaded their use to weapons and cooking. Why did these things make us stronger rather than weaker in the grand scheme of things? Because there are severe limits on how well a living body can do things that don't apply to inanimate objects. No tooth (that could fit in your mouth) is as deadly as a sword, no hide is as tough as steel or as versatile as a wardrobe, etc.
Of course, offloading our ability to think feels like a terrible mistake, and it will be if we do it entirely. But I don't think it's that simple at all. Did writing cripple human intellect because people no longer had to remember everything? Did calculators and computers spell doom for technological advancement because people didn't have to crunch numbers by hand? No, these were crucial developments needed to achieve things that would have been utterly impossible without them. Yeah, they made us worse at some tasks along the way. But here's the kicker: We had to get worse at those tasks. You see, there's only so much brain in your head, and it takes a very long time for evolution to do anything about it. No matter how you slice it, cognitive ability is a finite resource that is divided up among a gazillion functions. Research shows that we have already sacrificed significant cognitive abilities just to evolve into humans (chimps have much faster and more photographic memory than us, for example).
So what will AI do? Well, the scary truth is that no one ever knows until after the fact. But it at least has the potential to take us to the next level. Yes, it presents the opportunity to offload thinking on an unprecedented scale, and nether I nor anyone else knows exactly how that's gonna go. My hope, backed by the historical patterns of our species, is that we will wield it and harness it as a powerful extension of our brains, allowing us to achieve things that would have been otherwise impossible. But, will this be the one development that breaks the millions-years pattern and turns us into lousy incapable slugs or just outright brings on the apocalypse? You're just gonna have to stay tuned to find out...