AI and Cognitive Decline
Dan PetersonSynopsis — AI-drafted from Dan's notes
The argument is that AI does not have one cognitive effect, it has two, and which one you get depends on what you do with the output. Accept it as it arrives and you decline. Interrogate the reasoning behind it and you improve. Everything else in the post is illustration of that split.
The prescription that follows is the interesting part: run a deliberately weak model. The claim is that a model which fails often forces you to compensate, and the compensation is where the learning happens. The author also describes his own branching (non-linear) thinking style as the reason AI suits him differently than it would suit someone who thinks in a straight line.
He then retracts his own opening. The claim that the vast majority of people will decline is labelled speculative before the post ends, and the honest conclusion is that nobody knows yet. No studies, figures or researchers are cited anywhere.
Where I land
This is further validation that I am not the only one thinking this way. LLMs are such a different technology that we, as a species, are struggling with how to best integrate them without over-relying on them. It makes me wonder if other technologies have caused this much upheaval and soul-searching.
On the prescription itself, I think both can be true at the same time. It is not the approach that matters, as long as you achieve the same outcome. Friction is the point. Having “smarter” models just means having more guardrails; done properly, a larger model can provide you with better feedback and counter-arguments.
I do care about cognition. However, I also know that my own thinking patterns cause me to withhold what I am thinking, feeling and pondering. Using this structure allows me to actually put the patterns I see on top of the keyboard. The enablement increases the cognition. This whole experiment is to get me not only thinking more, but also exploring those thoughts in a therapeutic setting, while gathering more data about myself and about epistemology itself.
I think it is improving. However, that is a good question: how would you measure it? Does it matter?
Connections
Links
- Maikel, “AI and Cognitive Decline” (Two Miguels) — https://dosmigueles.com/language/en/ai-and-cognitive-decline/