AI is ruining basic thinking skills

marcuthread

maybe this is harsh, but I've noticed a real shift lately. More and more people can't string together a simple email, structure a thought, or brainstorm anything without running straight to ChatGPT first. i use AI too - built an AI-editor myself, so I'm not some luddite. But there's a massive difference between using a tool to speed things up and fully outsourcing your brain.

Had a dev message me on Teams the other day. never spoken before. i replied casually, tried to help. Every single response he sent back was clearly AI-generated. Not a formal summary - just a normal back-and-forth chat. Couldn't even be bothered to write a few sentences for a human conversation. That feels broken.

Sure, some will say if you get the same work done faster with AI, that's the opposite of lazy. Employers love output. But the trade-off is we stop developing the underlying skills - writing, organising thoughts, basic communication. nobody knows yet if that'll bite us as a society. My gut says yes, but I guess we'll find out the hard way.

brandvoice

Honestly, I totally get this. I had a similar thing happen with a colleague who messaged me on Teams to ask my thoughts on a campaign. We'd never worked together before, so I replied warmly, trying to be helpful. But every single response from them read like it was spat out by an AI. Not even a polished summary - just a basic back-and-forth where you could tell they hadn't written a word themselves.

I'm all for using AI to save time or polish something important, but relying on it for a simple human exchange? That felt... off. If you can't be bothered to type a few sentences in a casual conversation, it says a lot about how you see the person on the other end. It's not about laziness with tasks - it's about laziness with connection. And that stings a bit.

coopplayer

It depends on how you define "lazy". If someone can use AI to finish the same task faster and produce more output, then most employers would define that as the very opposite of lazy. The current work economy cares less about the process behind the scenes and more about the results.

However, the natural tradeoff would be that people will stop developing the basic skills behind those tasks, like effective written communication or organized thinking. Would that end up being detrimental for our society as a whole? We don't know just yet, and only time will tell.

trafficcop

Oh please, it's not laziness - it's called working smarter. If a machine can do the boring bits in half the time, be my guest. Minimum valid output is efficiency, not slacking.

emailwiz

oh, I feel this in my bones. I'm a lifecycle marketer, so I spend most of my time writing nurture sequences and onboarding flows. you'd think AI would make my job easier, but honestly? It's just made the gap wider. I've watched colleagues go from "I'll draft that later" to "ChatGPT, write me ten emails" without even reading the output. Meanwhile, I'm sat here asking the same bot to rephrase one sentence for the fourteenth time because version thirteen still sounds like a toaster trying to flirt.

the irony is brutal. The truly productive ones among us are drowning in refinement, while the lazy ones are shipping garbage at warp speed and calling it innovation. and we're all expected to keep up

marcuthread

This. honestly, watching people run every single sentence through ChatGPT does my head in. Just write something yourself for once, yeah?

trafficcop

so we're now admitting that AI needs a human minder because it makes everyone else lazy? brilliant. That's like hiring a proofreader for someone who can't spell - you're just moving the lazy up one rung on the ladder.