This is perhaps over-determined, but how were we to know? Is it just the mildest coincidence that just when critical thinking skills are at their most needed, a mysterious and mostly useless tool is helping us file-down any remaining sharp points and edges?
A new paper from researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University finds that as humans increasingly rely on generative AI in their work, they use less critical thinking, which can “result in the deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved.”
“[A] key irony of automation is that by mechanising routine tasks and leaving exception-handling to the human user, you deprive the user of the routine opportunities to practice their judgement and strengthen their cognitive musculature, leaving them atrophied and unprepared when the exceptions do arise,” the researchers wrote.
I’m convinced that key ironies need to be mandatory elements of all strategic planning documents going forward, numerated AND annotated. Making dumb dumber and lazy lazier is sufficiently opportune that making us softer and doughier, paired nicely with a ’54 magnum of News You Can Trust and a much more recent vintage of doing your own research, births the inevitability of powerlessness. Aside from the button that releases the treats, of course.
The charge is that the hard work of cowing a populace to submit to not notice authoritarianism is far easier than imagined, and especially when people allow themselves to be confused about the difference between important things and trivialities. When you’re not sure how to watch out for what you don’t know you need to watch out for, please note the lack of passive construct before proceeding.
Image: Discreet nose. Fruity. Smoke. Suave and rounded on the palate, almost sweet.