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Sharon Machlis
@smach@masto.machlis.com  ·  activity timestamp 4 days ago

GREAT read on how generative AI might affect our knowledge and skills once we start relying on it to perform intellectual work. There's historical context far beyond how calculators affect our ability to do math.

"The hard part is deciding, without nostalgia and inertia, which skills are keepers and which are castoffs. . . . Surely we have some say in whether LLMs expand our minds or shrink them." - Kwame Anthony Appiah

Gift link: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/10/ai-deskilling-automation-technology/684669/?gift=Vw7jowAt4TJWcg2vvOSAnXtIr02Sc_dUkbSRcJQk610&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
#GenAI

The Atlantic

The Age of De-Skilling

Will AI stretch our minds—or stunt them?
The hard part is deciding, without nostalgia and inertia, which skills are keepers and which are castoffs. None of us likes to see hard-won abilities discarded as obsolete, which is why we have to resist the tug of sentimentality. Every advance has cost something. Literacy dulled feats of memory but created new powers of analysis. Calculators did a number on mental arithmetic; they also enabled more people to “do the math.” Recorded sound weakened everyday musical competence but changed how we listen. And today? Surely we have some say in whether LLMs expand our minds or shrink them.
The hard part is deciding, without nostalgia and inertia, which skills are keepers and which are castoffs. None of us likes to see hard-won abilities discarded as obsolete, which is why we have to resist the tug of sentimentality. Every advance has cost something. Literacy dulled feats of memory but created new powers of analysis. Calculators did a number on mental arithmetic; they also enabled more people to “do the math.” Recorded sound weakened everyday musical competence but changed how we listen. And today? Surely we have some say in whether LLMs expand our minds or shrink them.
The hard part is deciding, without nostalgia and inertia, which skills are keepers and which are castoffs. None of us likes to see hard-won abilities discarded as obsolete, which is why we have to resist the tug of sentimentality. Every advance has cost something. Literacy dulled feats of memory but created new powers of analysis. Calculators did a number on mental arithmetic; they also enabled more people to “do the math.” Recorded sound weakened everyday musical competence but changed how we listen. And today? Surely we have some say in whether LLMs expand our minds or shrink them.
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