@aesthr I know a guy whose employer outright requires him to use Claude to write code. The CTO banned "manual coding." He knows he's deskilling but that's how he's keeping his job. There's also a sort of token board and as long as you're not an outlier management will leave you alone, so the incentive is to have Claude do everything: name branches, pull, open a file, etc.

@aesthr What makes me special? I’m not special. But I am, first and foremost, aware of what an LLM *is* and what it *is not*. It *is* a way to do text prediction. It *is not* intelligent, or “smart” or “compassionate” or “empathetic”. It’s a way of regurgitating stuff that has been written before. And the Internet, because of humanity, is fucked up and it’s impossible for me, a human, to find the answer to anything. I am more than happy to let a computer wade through all the advertising bullshit and lies and give me a usable answer.

Lemme ask *you* a serious question: Is there any sequence of letters that an LLM could output that would lead you to believe that it *is* intelligent? If so, why?

@aesthr i started using it because I kinda got pressured into and was depressed and insecure about my own skills. Later I have seen that I have become a meat proxy and hate this. So to prevent me becoming dumber and dumber, I recently doubled down on books and online ressources on topics that interest me and where I want to become better. I have named this journey "Getting my brain back" and hope to achieve my goal of getting rid of it as soon as possible (which means also saving money :D)

@aesthr Thanks for posting this. Now I can go through the replies and block the clankers.

@aesthr

There are risks. But:

* I take control frequently enough.

* I’m frugal and refuse to let AI do IDE-shaped tasks

* A study found that people with “need for cognition” have protection against decline. It’s not scientific, but I diagnose myself as having that. I observe that my colleagues or ex-colleagues are deskilling much faster than me.

* I will need to use AI to remain competitive with peers

* I really hope I’m not still doing this in 10 years anyway

@aesthr I am in the position where I don't have to use it (due do currently doing else).

However, I used it for some projects. Setup opencode with the free tier of a chinese engine. Did some simple stuff and a font previewer in Vala for linux/gtk.

I stopped using because the previewer kept on leaking memory like hell and, due having done it in a language I'm not familiar with, I wasn't skilled enough to fix it.

On that day, I felt my brain going mush. I was very, very scared.

@aesthr The number of people in the replies who don't qualify as "willing" users is flat out terrifying. I've never seen a "tool" forced on people like this

@aesthr I don't willingly use it, but the mental rot is still there. A lot of it stems from abandoning any sense of ownership over code and projects, and checking out from the corporate employer. None of my previous employers really valued genuine technical expertise, either. Anyone who ever held the potential to make *great* software was always directed to dull their mind's edge by repeatedly striking it against hard rocks. They either gave up or moved on. But now, nowhere to move on to.

@aesthr I’m using AI and I work very closely with LLMs - I’m building engineering system around them, I’m aware of limitations and I’m very critical when it comes to their output. At the same time I see how llms can be useful when used responsibly. As always, critical thinking is key. I'm not worried about psychosis I'm more worried about losing skills, but then again, who can do quick calculations without a calculator these days? We lose some skills and gain others

@aesthr willingly? Sort of. We are forced to use Copilot at work, and I do find it useful for data entry type tasks, pulling information from Acrobat files into spreadsheets. Never ever let it write my emails or anything like that. Loss of skill? Maybe? I used to get more creative trying to work around the insufficient reporting we get from various sources but on the other hand, now I have time to review the content of those files so I'm not sure. I try to do the work humans are better at.

@aesthr Does using it to generate job interview questions to help you prepare count? I've had a really hard time lately finding relevant questions the traditional way and you can prompt a chatbot to be as punishingly challenging as real interviewers. Besides - they're probably getting those questions from a chatbot as well.

@aesthr I personally am not too concerned about using AI because i don't use it to solve the problems of the world but like any other tool i'd use to solve an issue i have. I'm more concerned about AI usage in the news and the fact that felt 90% of Youtube videos are AI generated now and nobody made even an effort to make them interesting, just hourlong text fillers to tell a 10 minute story. Saying AI steals our time mostly.

@aesthr no, on the contrary, I learn new things. It is a tool. I think people said the same when other technologies were invented (eg. internet, smartphone).

@aesthr No, I don't believe I'm immune, and I've seen people I used to respect fall for it. I use it very sparingly, mostly to check what my students who use it are exposed to, and it's very scary. The other thing is I am very exposed to second-hand LLMing (reading my colleagues' slides or my students' work), and this is also affecting me because of the energy it takes to push back.

@aesthr just about the only thing I use is the YouTube AI summary on videos which are too fucking long and could have been a text document, and even then it’s just to get timestamps for salient moments. And that’s just a shitty fix for a different shitty problem (the proliferation of podcast-style “edutainment” as the only source of information about a bunch of things). And I hate using it even for that.

@aesthr yes, because I think those risks are overstated. 🙂

I organically time-limit my use and have reconfigured the personality because I don't want to be friends with a chat bot, for the same reason I don't want to be friends with my electric tea kettle. My smart home assistant is called "Computer" for similar reasons.

As for atrophying skills, I feel that's like saying that using a microwave for a few meals a week means that I'll forget how to cook. My lived reality is that I don't need to cook a roast dinner every day to remember how to cook a roast dinner. 🤔

Finally re: cognitive decline, I guess that depends on what people do with the time they're saving over a sustained period of time. Some people will use it to improve their mind and body. Others will indulge in vices and pleasures of the flesh. Whatever they were doing before AI is what they'll probably continue doing unless they decide otherwise. 🤷🏻‍♂️