The problem is that if you take away the LLM, all of a sudden you can't do any of the things you "learned". It's confusing familiarity with understanding.

As an educator (of working professionals / continuing education), I see first-hand the range of AI use amongst the population (and even my population is not a representative sample, as it's people who are intrinsically geared towards being interested in building with AI), but your experience unfortunately probably reflects around ~30% of the population. The other third I'm slightly less hopeful about, but they might have a chance merely surviving, and the latter third I'd place in the 'full cognitive offloading / total abdication of all thinking and learning to machines' - for them, as the kids say: ngmi. Even within me as a single individual, I can sense the times AI is so tempting to offload cognition, and other times where it has been like a 100x speedup in my own innate skills and abilities. The future has come on quick, and we are barely getting to adjust healthily to it.

Remove LLM and 80 pct of people will have to jump to start. LLM assistance is a huge dependence on something owned by few. And although I use it daily since Nov 22, I don’t see any big progress in productivity. Yes, I have done a lot of projects (that I can’t remember), I see a lot of sites made without human touch, I have heard fairy tales about llm’s breakthroughs to internet from a cage.

What I see that everybody is somehow a blacksmith now without knowing how to forge iron. And we call it progress.

I am optimistic, and I am not against LLM. I like a quote from OP’s article:

> One of my colleagues used to say, "AI is a mirror." I find that insightful: it reflects who you are, including the curiosity, judgment, and habits you bring to it. The questions you ask and the standards you apply to its answers matter.

>I've learnt more since the advent of LLMs than I did in the 10 years prior. And it's not just me; that is most people's experience with LLMs

My own usage too. Yet I believe that your environment is biased towards ambitious adults aligned with your values, who want to learn things. I don't think it's representative of world as a whole, and I'm even further worried about the youth, being a particularly vulnerable group. Let's hope that teachers and parents of today and tomorrow will keep reinforcing the idea that knowing things and having skills is worthwhile.

> I've learnt more since the advent of LLMs than I did in the 10 years prior. And it's not just me; that is most people's experience with LLMs.

I wonder. I agree that LLMs are great teaching assistants but, also, I often feel like watching the game instead of playing it. Sure I'll be an expert at football after watching all the games, but will I be an athlete?

But can you retain, process, and make use of that learning?

For me it's more like googling the capital of Nova Scotia. I used to know that, but I can google it more easily than memorize it.

I too use LLMs to learn different technical topics and generally like them for this. That said I think we’re in the minority. I don’t think most people use these tools to learn.

I find this absolute certainty completely alien and perplexing. We are terrible, untrustworthy observers, record keepers, and judges of ourselves, and the assertion begs so many questions that I can't guess what you actually mean or how serious you are.

You just feel like you have learned those things. Without the LLM all of the “skills” are lost.

I’m in the same boat as you, but sadly I’m not convinced of this:

> that is most people's experience with LLMs

I think the median LLM user in high school, for example, is mostly using it to avoid writing essays themselves.

I don’t have great evidence here, mainly just the plummeting exam scores. It could be that kids are also using llms to learn about the things they do care about. I’m skeptical.

i partially agree, but a little doubtful too. i remember feeling like i learned a ton after coming out of wikipedia rabbit holes, similar to when chatting with an AI now.

that's good!

but i also don't make any effort to write clearly anymore, might give up easier on a task, will very easily to defer to an AI for x/y/z technical decision, ...

that's not good!

>> I've learnt more since the advent of LLMs than I did in the 10 years prior.

You read more. "Learned" is if you actually manually applied it. Otherwise its like reading fiction - illusion of productivity or brain function.

Solving sudoku would be a better exercise for your brain and more load.

> And it's not just me; that is most people's experience with LLMs.

Uh... bold claim. What's your evidence?

> And it's not just me; that is most people's experience with LLMs. But most of those people would also concur with your apocalyptic thinking

Most of the people in your bubble.

Who are probably significantly above average intelligence, and many of whom have pretty keen awareness of that fact and its implications.

> except for me, only I

... and others in that bubble.

    And it's not just me; that is most people's experience with LLMs

Did you, really?

> that is most people's experience with LLMs.

citation needed. my (university) students don't seem to learn as much as before.

I feel like language models help me search through concepts really quickly, and will also help me understand things just well enough to use those concepts more quickly. So they kind of narrow what I learn down to exactly what I need in the moment.

I don't think I'm actually learning more though. I think the act of banging my head against the wall to learn something the hard way teaches me more, but feels harder and is slower.

But then I really retain it, and I've also learned a bunch of meta-skill in the process.

So I think it's just different. Now it's harder to force myself to bang my head against the wall when the easier path is so accessible. Used to just have far fewer available paths because they were too hard.

Hear, hear. We had the entirety of human knowledge available online for decades now. Are people more educated? Nah, cos most people aren't interested in looking for much beyond validation.

Perhaps me finding your comment and replying has similarities but at least this is validation of curiosity.

I love llms cos history isnt typically indexed by the sort of questions i wanna ask but an llm can cut a wide array of sources by an arbitrary metric and i can keep poking for more and more.

I see a wikipedia parallel. There's peeps among us that will 2am doom scroll wikipedia, peeps that will only do that same on social media and peeps who do a bit of both.

If and when smart glasses ubiquitious do all humans become know it alls with the answers to our questions always right in front of us? If so how will that change how we learn?

Hey you forgot /s at the end.

>And it's not just me; that is most people's experience with LLMs

Don't just assert shit you have no backing for.

In my experience people take what they read from LLMs at face value. I guess my anecdote is as good as yours.

Honestly using it less and less for exactly this reason. A lot of the time now even when I have a question for it, I think of the answer before I even send the question to it. And I just don't use it in IDE's at all anymore, period. Chat only.

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.

So AI is awesome for narcissists then, right?

... You are absolutely right!