Martin Hähnel
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@glyph/117605030684077976

Great thread. The problem™ with AI use is therefore not so much cognitive offloading/tool use, but the what/who/how of the offloading. I think you could add the "why" here as well: In a work context for example it might be mandated to use LLMs. Yelling at people holding onto a job - with families, pets and loved ones attached - is just cruel. Follow #GetFediHired for a while to see the desperation, before throwing everyone under the bus. (I don't know what to make of small entrepeneurs that do AI-assisted coding to create an app, for example. I guess they also have families?)

In general, there is therefore skill and restraint involved in using "AI". It's not the skill mentioned in the "skill issue" comments AI boosters make. But the skill is to use LLMs well without liquifying your brain while doing so.

While I was still using LLMs in my private life, I found that a relatively good way to handle the liquifying problem was to be the one who produces the output: Code, text. That's not a guarantee but at least you need to test your understanding.

Quoting @glyph@mastodon.social

So yes. By all means, you can talk about how cognitive offloading to AI is a problem, but if your criticism is "cognitive offloading is scary, it shrinks your brain", NO. Cognitive offloading *in general* is just *tool use*, it is like a fundamental thing about being human, even using a piece of paper to think about multiple ideas at once is "cognitive offloading" and will reduce your active working memory if you do it a lot. Socrates famously complained about this!

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