I think it will be the opposite. AI causes cognitive decline, in the future only the people who don't use AI will retain their ability to think. Same as smartphone usage, the less the better.
One could argue (truthfully!) that cars cause the decline of leg muscles. But in many situations, cars are enough better than walking, so we don't care.
AI may reach that point - that it's enough better than us thinking that we don't think much anymore, and get worse at thinking as a result. Well, is that a net win, or not? If we get there for that reason, it's probably a net win[1]. If we get there because the AI companies are really good at PR, that's a definite net loss.
All that is for the future, though. I think that currently, it's a net loss. Keep your ability to think; don't trust AI any farther than you yourself understand.
[1] It could still not be a net win, if AI turns out to be very useful but also either damaging or malicious, and lack of thinking for ourselves causes us to miss that.
You’re really saying that getting worse at thinking may be a net win, and comparing atrophied leg muscles to an atrophied mind? I think humanity has lost the plot.
Java and Assembly are the same in the dimension of cognitive burden. Trying to reason about this fundamentally new thing with analogies like this will not work.
That comparison kind of makes my point though. Sure you can bury your face into Tik Tok for 12hrs a day and they do kind of suck at Excel but smartphones are massively useful and used tools by (approximately) everyone.
Someone not using a smartphone in this day and age is very fairly a 'luddite'.
I disagree, smartphones are very narrowly useful. Most of the time they're used in ways that destroy the human spirit. Someone not using a smartphone in this day and age is a god among ants.
A computer is a bicycle for the mind; an LLM is an easy-chair.
