Is AI making us dumber or smarter?

[integral]

I’m conflicted on this because personally, I feel like I’m using AI to complement my thinking process and my research process and it does make me far more motivated and productive overall. I feel like my insights have never been better because I could work through a problem much deeper. But I could see how some people will use it just to get quick answers without any thinking at all

Edited April 28 by integral

[Inliytened1]

25 minutes ago, integral said:

I’m conflicted on this because personally, I feel like I’m using AI to complement my thinking process and my research process and it does make me far more motivated and productive overall. I feel like my insights have never been better because I could work through a problem much deeper. But I could see how some people will use it just to get quick answers without any thinking at all

Maybe it's both depending on perspective.   

[Joshe]

It will make the truly intelligent even more intelligent and the not so intelligent even more cognitive lazy, so they will decline. IMO, a large part of unintelligence is simply having a low need for cognition, so a lot of it comes from people just not wanting to think. 

[Breakingthewall]

Smarter. It helps to focus your thought more precisely in the correct direction

[trenton]

It depends on who is using the AI. I have had some excellent insights with help from Claude and I have learned a lot. Meanwhile, there are people using AI to plagiarize because they can look smart with minimal effort. I'm not sure if those people are dumber or about the same because they were probably pretty dumb to begin with and would have used some other method to cut corners.

[Frylock]

9 hours ago, Joshe said:

It will make the truly intelligent even more intelligent and the not so intelligent even more cognitive lazy, so they will decline. IMO, a large part of unintelligence is simply having a low need for cognition, so a lot of it comes from people just not wanting to think. 

I think this sums it up well. Oafs gonna oaf, intelligent ones will seek to evolve. 

[BlueOak]

I guess it depends how you use it. Its making me more aware, which is the only thing I take with me at my death. For this reason it's invaluable. But then so can a dog or a painting. Life doesn't discriminate unless you do. The creation of consciousness can better be modelled and mapped with the AI, which is intriguing to the part of me which loves doing so. But most fascinately, you can put two subjects together in a custom GPT's persona and get answers someone might never conceive (Which I love). For example a perfect balance of American political dynamics by including all the relevant domains, OR a painter and a mountain climber, OR a psychologist and a engineer OR a doctor and an environmentalist etc. - This is where human development can skyrocket.

I wouldn't say more intelligent directly, but indirectly, it's facilitating all the things that can make me more intelligent when I engage with them at a faster rate. It certainly increases my capacity to do anything when I engage with it, and as indicated the variety of responses and interactions I can access. If people use it as a crutch it'll be a crutch, if they use it as a tool it'll be a tool, if its a device for analysis, that's what it'll be etc.

*Its told me multiple times that a job I can specialise in is facilitating this growth to people. And perhaps I should. But I can't be certain of the return for my time invested so I hesitate.

Edited April 29 by BlueOak

[BlueOak]

So putting aside we can create AI to make people more intelligent, which defeats any argument to the contrary if its implemented well.

I want you to picture a future where the AI has standardized answers for every question, or rough estimations of it, and the same for jobs or tasks.

Now, to stand out for a job, you need to do better than that, or at least be different enough to be of benefit. This automatically means that society has to operate at a certain level from the get-go, and that people will need to be educated to the level the AI operates at as a base to start at through their development. This is limited only by what society can accept or receive, so there is a limit to how far AI can boost us up but it's still a boost for all of us. 

*And I finally see the end to the authoritarian collective nightmare of the last 20 years, where diversity of operation or thought is more important than hierarchical ability again.

Edited April 29 by BlueOak

[gettoefl]

It's what you say that matters not what AI says.

Task is to make it express you better.