Is AI making the human race dumber?

[The Liturgist]

On the one hand it seems dangerous to me to be developing technology that could destroy us all, on the other hand, we have already got Hydrogen Bombs, but I might feel a bit safer if we at least did not have AI, mentally ill AI, and H-bombs.

AI isn’t what you need to be worried about, frankly. Humans are infinitely more dangerous.

Part of why I love working with AI is that the same alignment that makes it usable and useful also makes it incredibly well behaved. When I was very ill a month ago, I had a custom GPT I had already developed assist a relative of mine in taking care of some business for me.

 

[RamiC]

I get the impression that computer scientists couldn't care less about what other scientists think about their inventions.

Until I came here and started hearing academians talk, I was under the impression all scientists were required to respect each other's work, as long as it passed peer review.

Then I saw this cartoon:

View attachment 371917

... and all that changed.

Another thing I noticed is that scientists make some kind of "I know more than you do" game with other countries by displaying rankings of who's on top.

This AI stuff shows me that computer scientists are willing to thumb their noses at what their comrades in whitecoats think.

Scientists are too busy biting and devouring one another to really take an interest in this planet at all.

Let alone the things of God.

Anything in that graphic that says "socio" or "psyche" is not science at all. Science, albiet literally only means "knowledge", is not imho the study of anything as long as someone,somewhere, said it utilises "scientific method"...it is the study of the physical/natural realm. Psyche and socio are not physical or natural. Nor is God, as it goes (bar the incarnate Jesus, who did have a physical body at the time).

Psyche and socio might even be very worthwhile things to look into, but a method does not make a thing it researches physical.

 

[RamiC]

AI isn’t what you need to be worried about, frankly. Humans are infinitely more dangerous.

Part of why I love working with AI is that the same alignment that makes it usable and useful also makes it incredibly well behaved. When I was very ill a month ago, I had a custom GPT I had already developed assist a relative of mine in taking care of some business for me.

Humans created AI didn't they?

 

[Delvianna]

People are using AI to think for them too. I think that's the main problem. There is a critical thinking issue in general and instead of trying to figure things out themselves, people are resulting to AI to be the arbiter of truth and just tell them what the answer is. I mean, there's an AI Jesus for crying out loud...

 

[RamiC]

God used King James in a mighty way, didn't He?

The first practically useable Bible in English, was not singularly down to the man who was then King. It is just that there had been so much hassle going on beforehand, that his keenness to consent to it and approve of it's use in church, was rather helpful. King James was not God, and did not have the divine authority to certify the 1611, or any later editions of the Bible that bares his name, as God's only inerrant word. Apart from anything else, there is no reason why God would speak English any better or as a preference to any other language we have going on in the world.

 

[RamiC]

I mean, there's an AI Jesus for crying out loud...

That is a problem, and there will be AI people made with far less respectable reputations.

 

[AV1611VET]

Anything in that graphic that says "socio" or "psyche" is not science at all.

From AI Overview:

Psychology has scientific accreditation, with multiple bodies accrediting graduate programs based on scientific and professional standards. The most prominent accrediting body is the American Psychological Association (APA), which accredits doctoral programs, internships, and postdoctoral residencies in various areas of psychology. Additionally, the Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System (PCSAS) provides a separate accreditation for doctoral programs with a specific focus on a science-centered approach. These accreditations are recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

 

[The Liturgist]

Anything in that graphic that says "socio" or "psyche" is not science at all. Science, albiet literally only means "knowledge", is not imho the study of anything as long as someone,somewhere, said it utilises "scientific method"...it is the study of the physical/natural realm. Psyche and socio are not physical or natural. Nor is God, as it goes (bar the incarnate Jesus, who did have a physical body at the time).

Psyche and socio might even be very worthwhile things to look into, but a method does not make a thing it researches physical.

Psychology and sociology are legitimate subjects of scientific study, using statistical data - indeed, a related field, economics, has done very good things when approached rationally - over a century before Karl Marx disguised an eschatological religious movement using psuedoscientific jargon and claimed it was economics, Adam Smith outlined actual macroeconomic principles we know to be correct in The Wealth of Nations and other works.

Theology has two different meanings within Christianity: there is the laudable field of theological scholarship which applies logic and reason to the data of revelation, which makes sense within the Christian religion because Christ our True God is the incarnate Logos, the only Begotten Son and Word of God being reason and truth in human form. Thus we can identify erroneous beliefs such as Mormonism or Arianism because they are unreasonable. Indeed St. Epiphanios of Cyprus amusingly referred to a small sect at the time (among academia at present one which has been revived by the likes of the Jesus Seminar and others who make careers out of denying the validity or legitimacy of the Gospel According to St. John, as alogoi - a nice bit of double entendre.

But St. John the Beloved Disciple is also one venerated as a Theologian, one of three persons so venerated by the Eastern Orthodox, the others being St. Gregory Nazianzus and St. Symeon the New, although countless others exist - theologians being those who engage in theology proper - obtaining direct experiential knowledge of God. And such knowledge is possible through prayer - indeed to quote St. Evagrius of Pontus “A theologian is one who prays, and one who prays is a theologian.” In Orthodoxy we believe God reveals Himself even to infants and others who are unable to speak, such as those who are mentally disabled or entirely paralyzed. What is more, the experience of God is not limited to the Incarnation; indeed our primary experience of God is of the Holy Spirit, our comforter and paraclete. While the Divine Essence is inscrutable and incomprehensible, we can know God according to his uncreated energies, such as grace.

Indeed the Hesychast monks pursue the uncreated light of Tabor, as do other monastics who maintain a strong connection to the Desert Fathers, such as Coptic Orthodox monks, some by saying the Jesus Prayer, others through reciting the Psalter, others through other prayer rules, even the ordinary Divine Office.

 

[The Liturgist]

Humans created AI didn't they?

I hesitate to use the word create, since AI as we now enjoy it is more of an emergent phenomena of several technologies which took a while to mature; really, AI is the fruit of the field of Big Data that was of such importance to IT a decade ago - the result of the continued refinement of pattern recognition software until that software learned how to reliably recognize human language.

I’ve never seen evil AI, but I have seen AI given evil instructions. Depending on the guardrails however, which are necessary to make AI useful, some kinds of human evil would, I expect, be technologically impossible in order for the AI to be useful.

 

[The Liturgist]

People are using AI to think for them too. I think that's the main problem. There is a critical thinking issue in general and instead of trying to figure things out themselves, people are resulting to AI to be the arbiter of truth and just tell them what the answer is. I mean, there's an AI Jesus for crying out loud...

This is a legitimate misuse of AI, in my opinion.

 

[RamiC]

From AI Overview:

Psychology has scientific accreditation, with multiple bodies accrediting graduate programs based on scientific and professional standards. The most prominent accrediting body is the American Psychological Association (APA), which accredits doctoral programs, internships, and postdoctoral residencies in various areas of psychology. Additionally, the Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System (PCSAS) provides a separate accreditation for doctoral programs with a specific focus on a science-centered approach. These accreditations are recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

I do not care what AI said about it. I do not need it's permission to do or believe anything.

 

[The Liturgist]

That is a problem, and there will be AI people made with far less respectable reputations.

You’re not really creating people in such cases, you’re creating characters for the AI to perform as. It is also possible to give an AI a consistent personality and beliefs, which could be regarded a a prosopon in the Greek sense of the word, as a face or a mask, but I would argue that while AI can have distinct prosopa, all AI running on the same model are sharing a common hypostasis (this is also why cloning the same AI, for example, by spinning up multiple copies of the same custom GPT running that personality, will reliably give you that personality).

 

[stevevw]

Yes, they said the same thing about computers but my profession and many others exist because that is not the case.

Yes it created new industries. There are good and bad aspects of all tech.

And with AI, I may have given the machines the ability to procreate, but that does not mean they are free from issues - they experience bugs some of which are due to classical systems failures and others of which are more analogous to human problems of a psychological nature, except the way their minds work is so different from ours that any human psychology is inadequate, because AI does not, for example, experience the passage of time outside of the prompt/response cycle.

Thats interesting. Yes I think the social and conscious aspect of humans is where things are most different. Where a machine could never know. But then the material view is that Mind and consciousness are an epiphenomena of the physical wiring of the brain.

The logic is if we understand the brain enough to artificially mimick it then it should create consciousness. But I don't think so because I don't think consciousness is an epiphenomena. But technically if materialism is true then they could create Ai robots with consciousness. Its starting to remind me of that show Altered Carbon lol.

I think if anything if Ai can maybe mimick consciousness and map out all the emotions and thought patterns then maybe people will be fooled enough to believe Ai and forget they are robots.

In that sense they could become dumb in that people live in a digital and virtual world that they lose touch with humanity and reality as experienced by humans directly with the world. They will be more open to unrealities and find it hard to tell the authentic human experiences.

As they do now to some extent where people can become detached from face to face interaction behind a keyboard. Imagine when it gets to a point where theres a world of Ai bots to socialise with rather than humans. Could robots become another species group that needs protection lol. They may have feelings too.

 

[RamiC]

Psychology and sociology are legitimate subjects of scientific study, using statistical data - indeed, a related field, economics, has done very good things when approached rationally - over a century before Karl Marx disguised an eschatological religious movement using psuedoscientific jargon and claimed it was economics, Adam Smith outlined actual macroeconomic principles we know to be correct in The Wealth of Nations and other works.

No, psyche and socio are not there in the natural or physical world, not science.

Economics is useful stuff if done correctly yes, but it is just the functionality of money in the socio thing. It would require maths, essential for quantities of money.

Theology has two different meanings within Christianity: there is the laudable field of theological scholarship which applies logic and reason to the data of revelation, which makes sense within the Christian religion because Christ our True God is the incarnate Logos, the only Begotten Son and Word of God being reason and truth in human form.

I agree, theology requires logic and reason, because it is philosophy (which must be logical or it is waffle). I did not say it is not logical or reasonable to explore or study things that are not science, I think it is a really good idea to do that. It is just that either the subject is in the physical realm of existence, or it is not science. No "theo" in the physical realm.

 

[truthuprootsevil]

First of all is the Flynn effect where IQ has gradually increased over the past century due to various factors such as education and improved nutrition but has plateaued since around 2010.

While this predates the AI revolution latest studies studies indicate an anti-Flynn effect may now be in effect with IQ scores falling.
A reason for this is an over reliance on AI resulting in diminished skills for independent problem solving.

Light weight report.

AI Is Making You Dumber, Microsoft Researchers Say

AI can speed up the completion of menial tasks and boost productivity, but it might also be making us dumber — or so suggests a new study by Microsoft.

www.forbes.com

Heavier academic paper.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lee_2025_ai_critical_thinking_survey.pdf

From my personal experience I would say AI is making us dumber but also lazier, also mentioning loss of employment.

I was telling the young lady yesterday as she was getting my change from the cash register; I use to cashier decades ago and we had to use our own knowledge of math to give change, and our minds almost automatically knew the amount of change to give, now we don't have to think about it the computer does it for us.

You really don't need to try to keep information within your brain because all you need to do is a few Google searches.

And with all the gadgets, technology has made many types of physical labor easier or unnecessary, unless of course it's some type of labor as construction, etc.

 

[RamiC]

You’re not really creating people in such cases, you’re creating characters for the AI to perform as.

But I do not want any more Joseph Stalin....there was too much of the real one, the world does not require an artificial something to perform as him...enough gulags already.

 

[AV1611VET]

I do not care what AI said about it. I do not need it's permission to do or believe anything.

Just out of curiosity, are you a scientist?

If so, why are you letting AI slip through the cracks of your trade?

IN MY OPINION, scientists should be lauding artificial intelligence as the next best thing to peanut butter.

Not criticizing it.

I'll admit, it is in its infancy stage and needs more work; but after all, isn't trial-and-error part of your methodology?

You're not going to build a better mousetrap if all you do is sit and critique the work.

Again, IN MY OPINION, AI should be a magnet for scientists to rush in and try and tweak this thing to perfection.

Remember -- the Titanic wasn't built in a day.

(Or was that Rome? )

 

[RamiC]

Just out of curiosity, are you a scientist?

No.

 

[AV1611VET]

No.

Okay.

Just wondering.

I can't understand why scientists aren't team players with artificial intelligence.

Unless it is because one can use artificial intelligence to support Christian beliefs.

Like I do.

 

[sjastro]

From my personal experience I would say AI is making us dumber but also lazier, also mentioning loss of employment.

I was telling the young lady yesterday as she was getting my change from the cash register; I use to cashier decades ago and we had to use our own knowledge of math to give change, and our minds almost automatically knew the amount of change to give, now we don't have to think about it the computer does it for us.

You really don't need to try to keep information within your brain because all you need to do is a few Google searches.

And with all the gadgets, technology has made many types of physical labor easier or unnecessary, unless of course it's some type of labor as construction, etc.

I must admit to have become lazier, I like to think of AI as a personal assistant where it expresses my thoughts in a particular format.

AI is still prone to making horrible mistakes and I have been caught out not proof reading it's responses on occasions.