AI is changing how we think, not replacing it | Letters
Richard Thackeray and Phil Snell respond to an article by Wendy Liu on using artificial intelligence, arguing that AI enhances curiosity rather than diminishing it.
Article intelligence
Key points
- Wendy Liu raises concerns about labour redundancies, hype, and environmental cost of AI.
- Richard Thackeray, a heavy AI user, finds AI makes him more curious and enables exploration of new territory.
- Offloading research to AI frees the mind rather than emptying it.
Why it matters
This matters because wendy Liu raises concerns about labour redundancies, hype, and environmental cost of AI.
Technical impact
May affect research directions, evaluation methods, open-source reproduction, and productization paths.
Richard Thackeray and Phil Snell respond to an article by Wendy Liu on using artificial intelligence
Wendy Liu’s thoughtful piece on AI and cognitive sovereignty raises real concerns about labour redundancies, the hype and the environmental cost (I avoid AI tools because thinking is supposed to be hard. It’s what makes us human, 24 May). But I think she allows those legitimate grievances to colour a separate and more interesting question: what is AI actually doing to the way we think?
I use AI heavily and it has changed how I think, but not in the way she fears. It has made me more curious, not less. I now ask questions that I wouldn’t have known to ask and explore territory I would never have had time to reach. Yes, I offload research, but that offloading doesn’t empty my mind, it frees it.
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