Remember the way to the restaurant? How transformative technology may dumb us down as a species

[u/limsus]

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/remember-way-restaurant-transformative-technology-dumb-species-10209165/

[u/404NotAFish]

I compare it with physical health. If you're physically active, your body will be able to handle lifting things, walking for a long time, etc. If you neglect your physical health, those things will be harder and eventually border impossible.

If we don't keep our brains active, our cognitive skills will get rusty. They won't disappear, but it'll be harder to get them back unless we start practising regularly again.

The more we rely on technology to complete tasks for us, the less able we will become to complete them for ourselves - until we decide...to practice completing them for ourselves.

[u/euMonke]

When I was a kid we remembered the phone numbers of everyone we knew. And this wasn't something special, everyone remembered,

[u/BlueCheeseWalnut]

Is this the full article or is there more behind the paywall?

[u/one_is_enough]

No, every single invention makes us dumber as individuals, but smarter as a species. And I’m OK with that, because I don’t want to be a caveman.

[u/VincentNacon]

Oh for fuck sake... Not everyone has the same I.Q. level! AI doesn't affect those above the average... instead, it merely highlighted how bad people below the average really are.

AI isn't making people dumber, it's just making them stand out more. The same way how some people found out about their friend or family becoming MAGA supporter.

It's already there, you just never knew how bad until you start noticing the AI stuff they're using.

[u/R4vendarksky → u/VincentNacon]

I don’t agree. When I was a teenager I knew over 50 landline and mobile numbers off by heart. I could still tell you them now. But now I barely remember my wife’s number. 

When information isn’t needed to be retained a lot of people just subconsciously treat it differently. 

I can easily see how this would happen with directions. I stopped using google maps by default when I noticed I’d started relying on it. But I imagine most people don’t do that.

[u/feeltheglee → u/R4vendarksky]

Agreed, I moved recently and relying on Google maps to get places was a serious impediment to learning how to get around. Their algorithm favors cutting through side streets to save 30 seconds, and I'd rarely be sent the same way twice. 

I still use it if I'm going somewhere new, but I will take arterial roads of my choosing to get most of the way there and let Maps handle the last mile.

[u/knotatumah → u/R4vendarksky]

I think, though, your comment highlights the argument quite well. AI isn't making people dumber just as much as new technology didn't make you forget old numbers but you still didn't need to remember your wife's new number. So AI isn't so much making people dumber but its definitely highlighting how people rely on it and how new information is being handled. Tangental thought: reminds me of watching speed runners at live events getting lost in games they never played normally and admitting they dont know what to do to recover: "never been here, never played the game properly, dont know what to do". In that affect, we're "speed running" human knowledge and skills and when people start getting lost we're gonna start seeing the impact more.

[u/VincentNacon → u/R4vendarksky]

You're confusing knowledge/long-term memory and intuition/problem-solving together as one thing.

[u/Akuuntus → u/R4vendarksky]

Remembering a lot of arbitrary numbers isn't intelligence. Someone who knows the first 20 digits of pi and types them into a calculator manually when doing calculations isn't any smarter than a person who just hits the π button and calls it a day.