Just an anecdote, my father when he was younger used to be a great driver. He would drive all around Europe on our vacations, in capital cities (e.g. Paris) with nothing but a tourist map (mother holding the map) and his eyes and ears.

Places I wouldn't really like to drive myself today because of the difficulty (Italy etc.).

For many years he's been using GPS to assist him, first TomTom then iPhone and now his new car has CarPlay.

He's a much worse driver today, constantly distracted, constantly looking at the screen instead of his surroundings and actually learning, using his brain.

I myself like to ride MTB in the woods, I know all the trails and small features in the back of my head. I'm aware of my surroundings and it just sticks without any effort over the years.

I have friends I ride with who use a trail map on their phone or bike computer, many years later they still don't know the trails because they're always looking at their devices.

Sometimes we stop to "have a look" where the fork in the trail goes, drives me mad when it interrupts the flow of the ride.

This is what AI feels to me in many ways.

It's a double-edged sword.

Knowledge work. Part of it is the ability to reason and part of it is just knowing many things and certain fundamental principles.

Do you have more details on which aspects of Epictetus' philosophy are related to hating to outsource mental work? I'm not familiar enough with stoicism. Thanks

(I could ask chatgpt, I ask you instead =p)

PS: Claude 3.5 Haiku take on it: "For Epictetus, the process of thinking is more important than the result. By outsourcing mental work, people surrender their most valuable tool for self-improvement - their own mind."