Plato's _Phaedrus_ features Socrates arguing against writing; "They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks."
I have heard people argue that the use of calculators (and later, specifically graphing calculators) would make people worse at math; quick searching found papers like https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED525547.pdf discussing the topic.
I can't see how the "LLMs make us dumber" argument is different than those. I think calculators are a great tool, and people trained in a calculator-having environment certainly seem to be able to do math. I can't see that writing has done anything but improve our ability to reason over time. What makes LLMs different?
I have heard people argue that the use of calculators (and later, specifically graphing calculators) would make people worse at math; quick searching found papers like https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED525547.pdf discussing the topic.
I can't see how the "LLMs make us dumber" argument is different than those. I think calculators are a great tool, and people trained in a calculator-having environment certainly seem to be able to do math. I can't see that writing has done anything but improve our ability to reason over time. What makes LLMs different?