I was recently pointed in the direction of this paper:

Beware of Metacognitive Laziness: Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence on Learning Motivation, Processes, and Performance

Having looked through the paper, they seem to really only make a claim about essay writing with regards to a relatively small sample, it’d be cool to see if larger sample sizes exhibit the same differences

I think there’s more to evaluate than just essay writing as well. What convinced me about ChatGPT was when I stated chatting with it, bouncing ideas off in order to discover a new field I’m inexperienced in – it gave me a starting point, essentially taking the place of hours of googling

Speaking of which, the laziness they refer to warrants comparison with other technological leaps such as Google, or even GPS! I’d wager the average persons map reading skills has declined measurably in the last 25 years, but for most people, using a GPS is worth that trade-off. When it’s used well, people can use GPS to navigate totally foreign places with ease – which is worth the trade-off in that case

Personally, i don’t think ChatGPT is that different. It lowers the activation energy required to learn a new concept, but it may also decrease the depth of knowledge attained. For 80% of life this is a worthwhile trade-off to get breadth over depth, but maintaining good learning skills is essential for that last 20%

What I’m more concerned about is how these models are served by massive companies and how they hold all the cards. Improvements in local models will address that partially, but this goes into my concerns with cloud computing in general.

We can only improve in the direction in which we stress ourselves. Take away the stress, improvements will decelerate. It up to the individual to make the best of the time they have