from Hacker News

AI's Biggest Threat: Young People Who Can't Think

by miles on 6/23/25, 6:30 AM with 40 comments

  • by smcleod on 6/23/25, 7:53 AM

    I'd argue that a huge portion of the working population have for a long time exhibited an inability to think - probably in part due to the meaningless, widget churning work they're tasked with - I don't think that'll change, however being empowered to learn and try things beyond your individual grasp by leveraging AI as for example a coding parter can unlock whole new ways of thinking in domains they'd otherwise not have the time to investigate.

    See also https://smcleod.net/2025/03/the-democratisation-paradox-what...

    Watch out horses! The motorised carriage is going to do away with your ability to gallop!

  • by joenot443 on 6/23/25, 11:37 AM

    > Another professor notes that AI papers are replete with “seemingly logical statements that are actually full of emptiness.” A depressing thought is that students are incapable of discerning such intellectual vapor because their heads are empty.

    This is depressing, indeed. I think this type of empty-headedness has been growing for a while and isn't just a result of AI, I think it's a result of people generally not having a well-tuned mental barometer for what makes for strong writing.

    I think if you didn't read much as a young person, the sort of grammatically-sound and calmly-smug prose that GPT produces probably passes as "good" writing because it has all of the characteristics you remember that good writing must possess. If I may..

    > Summarizing paragraphs must begin with strong statements. References can be made to previous points, perhaps acknowledge weaknesses, but the main structure remains the same. Our writing is confident, familiar, and satisfied - just like writing should be.

    Unfortunately, I think this is similar to someone growing used to "good" meals from Cheesecake Factory and allowing that to become their reference point for fine dining. All the pieces are there, nothing about it is distinctly "wrong", but something feels off.

    I don't pretend to have a solution.

  • by Terr_ on 6/23/25, 7:48 AM

  • by nottorp on 6/23/25, 9:04 AM

    > Another professor notes that AI papers are replete with “seemingly logical statements that are actually full of emptiness.”

    In my country we were calling this "wooden language" back when were under a communist dictatorship behind the iron curtain.

    Lots of words that are designed to avoid any responsability for anything.

    Now we're automating this.

  • by pgryko on 6/23/25, 11:11 AM

    What happens when AGI is able to think better than us? Will governments close schools and universities as its no longer economically useful?

  • by johnea on 6/23/25, 2:58 PM

    AI's Second Biggest Threat: Old People Who Can't Think

  • by paradox242 on 6/23/25, 6:33 PM

    They "tempt" us into cognitive offloading? That is just about the entire value proposition.

  • by dyauspitr on 6/23/25, 7:53 PM

    Oh I definitely find my brain resisting the process of writing a new document from scratch. It’s just so much easier to have ChatGPT spit out the initial version and then refine it from there.

    I’m still definitely providing value with no decrease in the quality of my output so I’m counting on my past knowledge + ChatGPT to get me through my career but I weep for the next generation.