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Comment by vouaobrasil | Hacker News Reader

> I don't think chatgpt could have come to this on its own without the amount of steering he did, which just validates the idea that AI is not a replacement for human expertise but an amplifier.

The problem is that, what happens to human expertise as people start to use AI earlier and earlier in their careers, so that in 50 years? The problem is that Terry Tao spent decades as a mathematician before ever encoutering AI. Of course he and people his age will be able to drive AI somewhat sanely and use it to their advantage.

But as more people grow up with AI, they will likely not reach levels like Terry Tao because their exposure to AI and the temptation to use it will certainly dull raw human intellect over time.

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I don't know if I agree with the premise that having access to AI results in dulling human intellect.

I feel like to get to Terry's level you need a combination of passion and aptitude for the subject. People that don't want to learn about a topic will always look for shortcuts, which I think represents the vast majority of people. Terry Tao is quite exceptional, and I think exceptional people will still exist even when the "easy" button is bigger than it's ever been.

The problem is that learning never stops. You can't just go through school, become a junior in X field, then start using AI. Then you'll forever be a junior. You have to make a choice when you're working a job: either use AI-first workflows to increase your productivity, or don't and increase your knowledge and skill.

My wording is specific. You can use AI and increase knowledge and skill, but this requires you to be driving the AI at such a low level you don't get the full speedup. As an example, you can write code yourself with AI as an assistant, but it's not as fast as AI writing everything.

So now we end up stuck in a situation where every professional needs to choose between long term skill growth or speed, as anyone who's worked a job before knows, speed will always be the one chosen.

I agree with that. However, even people who want to learn will take shortcuts, only to a lesser degree. And I do think that will dull their ability to work on their own. Even if there are one or two people who have some Luddite bent (like myself) who avoid many technologies like AI, a much larger proportion of people with dulled intellects will likely make the entire environment worse as well for those top people that still need healthy environments to survive.

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