WARNING ! AI rots your Brain

A.I. confuses stupidity with laziness. I mischaracterize drivers on the highway much the same way.   

(Typing from mobile so have to be brief) Which tools do you use? I'm using paid CoPilot although I think there are better tools now. 

I don't know how much it retains, but I find it useful even at drafting (based on my comments) the function prototypes or class header files (and guiding it yourself if it's not what is expected, although sometimes it's interesting to see where it goes for a little bit, in case I've missed the woods for the trees), and then it seems to remember the methods and member variables when it comes to the source code, so that it's probably focusing effort on small functions rather than ingesting large volumes of code for generating its output (I'm only guessing though since it's a black box).

More often than not it also learns to output things in the current code style (e.g. my variable naming conventions) but if it sometimes picks something else, I can nip it in the bud right at the header files, then it remembers that for the rest of the code.

shabaz Reference the customer example you share... we experience this with field technicians.  A few of them want to just be "smart hands" - meaning that they know what the components are but want someone else to tell them what to do.  We fight this tendency initially with delayed response.  The problem child calls.  We wait 15 minutes before calling them back.  The worst offenders get a 30 minute "time out".  It's amazing because usually they have figured the problem out by the time we call.  If they have done nothing at all during the "time out", they are unmotivated and we start coaching them out of the company.  It takes a while to identify technicians with this tendency because they usually start out calling other technicians.  Once identified, we all work together to try to break that habit.  We've saved a few, but not all of them.

Hehe that's exactly it, "smart hands" is a nice term. My friend's problem customer is currently hooked to WhatsApp video chats to show every issue! 

I've been using Copilot at work, but honestly, it's been pretty frustrating. I'm a big fan of Gemini instead.

For SQL databases, Gemini is absolutely brilliant – it just takes all the boring work right out of it. With Java, it's really good too, but you do need to be clear about the level of abstraction and the design patterns you want so you don't just get generic, copy-pasted code.

I've noticed huge improvements in its VHDL and SystemVerilog capabilities in recent updates. It's fantastic for generating testbenches, which is super helpful, though I do have to put in extra effort to verify its output. I'm also studying RISC-V processor design in SystemVerilog, and Gemini has been a lifesaver for quickly generating small test programs for the RISC-V instructions I'm implementing

I think we're seeing this tendency in medicine as well. No matter what you have, call in a specialist.

This can be fixed with a two-tier pay system. You want to be smart hands? $3/hour. You the guy all the smart hands call? $30/hour.

That's very useful feedback, I'll give Gemini a try at some point.

Are we saying CEOs, who rely on others to do the legwork, are becoming less intelligent?   

AI puts research jobs at risk, especially in academics. That's the fear. AI is plausibility through structured reasoning and presentation.

I can see the issue. With this sort of tool there's less desire, and possibly need, in it's current form, to "study further and delve deeper". So higher education impacted. Hence the article termed it ultimately "dumbing down" of everything.

It's fine, for now, as those with experience can quickly spot anomalies and have the skills to ask the right questions. But, imo, this will soon unravel and then who knows what.

To me the conclusion seems to be that if you don't exercise your brain in ways that help you learn or problem-solve, then you may well struggle at the times you need to learn something or to problem-solve.

Bear in mind, people do other things that require mental work. Probably (speculating!) 90% of people using Chat GPT for coding are not developers, and are doing it to help them with some other problem they are trying to solve for their jobs or as a side thing.

Lots of businesses have problems in scaling, running their business purely by Excel (this is not unusual!). They don't have a way out because they have no IT staff, until they can grow enough to afford it - it's a circular problem.

For those sorts of people it's probably quite empowering to be able to create simple projects to solve small problems, to make their normal job that slight bit more efficient with some automation through their coding.