I first saw this point made by Venkat Rao more than a year ago in "Prompting is Managing" [1]. It was written in response to the "Your brain on ChatGPT" paper that was then making the rounds, about how LLM use is supposedly making people stupid.
Venkat argued that the study subjects did poorly not because LLMs were dulling their minds, but because the study subjects were freshman students with no management skills being tested on tasks that required delegation, quality gating and exception handling. The study put people in a situation that created role confusion and concluded that the poor outcomes were due to "cognitive debt" induced by LLM use.
Venkat argued that the study subjects did poorly not because LLMs were dulling their minds, but because the study subjects were freshman students with no management skills being tested on tasks that required delegation, quality gating and exception handling. The study put people in a situation that created role confusion and concluded that the poor outcomes were due to "cognitive debt" induced by LLM use.
[1]: https://contraptions.venkateshrao.com/p/prompting-is-managin...