Myth: Artificial intelligence will make humans stupid
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Myth
Teachers often rebel against ChatGPT, which they see as a tool for cheating at school. They claim that artificial intelligence will deprive kids of their ability to think independently.
✗ Myth: Artificial intelligence will make you lazy and stupid
Fact
Teachers are only partly right. Kids acquire over 100 bad habits at school. Instead of being guided by the learn drive, they follow instructions. When doing tasks they often optimize for "minimum expenditure of energy and time". Kids conditioned to be performance animals naturally seek minimum expenditure of energy. They do not capitalize on the power of AI to enhance their intellectual capacity. They get their answers and move on to other things.
It is a very different story with kids who never went to school or became free learners later in life. They use AI as a tool to reach new levels of intelligence. They delegate jobs to AI, and operate at meta-cognitive level. They gain new insights and new powers.
See also
The history of "makes you stupid" myths is rich. Even writing was to make us stupid (Socrates). Calculators, Internet, Google, social media, and now AI, they follow the same pattern. For a rigorous proof of falsity see: Proof: Internet makes us smarter.
See also:
- Internet makes you stupid
- Google makes you stupid
- Inspirational conversation with a ChatBot Grok
- AI Is Making You Dumber, Microsoft Researchers Say
Myth busting is an important mission at SuperMemo Guru. We tackle myths about memory, learning, creativity, SuperMemo, and incremental reading. Please write if you want a myth busted or if you disagree