I would suggest that any person who uses AI will atrophy their compositional skills unless they specifically take care to preserve those skills.

As a student, I constantly worry about this. But everyone in my class is producing output at a pace I can't compete with without AI assistance.

what class are you in that "producing output at a [rapid] pace" is relevant to the grade?

pick any cs class

I have a minor in CS and no -producing the assignment by the deadline is important- grades are not based on quantity of code vs classmates.

I mean, maybe things have changed (I finished college about 20 years ago), but I don't remember producing large volumes of stuff as being a particularly important part of a CS degree.

Between a challenging job market, increasing new frontiers of learning (AI, MLops, parallel hardware) and an average mind like mine, a tool that increases throughput is likely to be adopted by masses, whether you like it or not and quality is not a concern for most, passing and getting an A is (most of my professors actively encourage to use LLMs for reports/code generation/presentations)

It will be a very interesting experiment when your generation of computer science graduates enters the job market, to put it mildly.

Individuals believe they act freely, but they are constrained and directed by historical forces beyond their awareness - Leo Tolstoy

Historical forces beyond your awareness cannot force you to submit mountains of slop.

slop is not a thing anymore, stop living in a fantasy world

What are you talking about? Slop existed long before AI and it will exist long after.

Remember, you chose this. You chose not to learn, to offload your thinking in the name of competition.

The last one already killed unique web designs, killed flash, gave us us soulless flat design and electron bloat.

They'll have to work pretty hard to outdo that!

That was never a worry in any of my CS classes.

My brother is a CS student and he is pretty much in the same boat.

Copying AI slop isn’t producing output! It’s also not conducive to learning

As if you are just a such a genius the models are of no use to you.

How can you not think that makes you sound like a complete moron?

I guess I really am just that much smarter than you.

I would urge you to leverage some critical thinking, re-read what I stated, and identify where I said that the models are of no use to me. If the ability to think for yourself without AI assistance hasn't fully atrophied on your end you may be able to see that you are the moron in this thread.

Yah and this seems to be supported by preliminary evidence on the impact of AI on things like retention and cognitive ability.

Not even just skills, motivation too.

I could have sworn there was research that stated the more you use these tools the quicker your skills degrade, which honestly feels accurate to me and why I've started reading more technical books again.

> I've started reading more technical books again

How's that working out for you in the context of working with AI tools? Do you feel like it's helping you make better use of them? Or keeping your mind sharp?

I've been considering getting some books on core topics I haven't (re)visited in a long time to see if not having to write as much code anymore instead gives me time to (re)learn more and accelerate.

I just don't understand how someone can have these models at their disposal not learn anything?

The general lack of intellectual curiosity is just mind blowing to me.

Not until large-N research is done without sponsorship, support, or veiled threats from AI companies.

At which point, if the evidence turns out to be negative, it will be considered invalid because no model less recent than November 2027 is worth using for anything. If the evidence turns out to be slightly positive, it will be hailed as the next educational paradigm shift and AI training will be part of unemployment settlements.

We DEEPLY do not.

That's not, IMO, a "skills go down" position. It's respecting that this is a bigger maybe than anyone in living memory has encountered.

Clearly this means Anthropic believes this but would be nice to have a footnote pointing to research backing this claim.

It is also not very convincing considering that while the UI of Claude is not bad it is also not exactly stellar.

Let me add a single data point.

> is likely to improve at what they do

personally, my skills are not improving.

professionally, my output is increased

My software development skillset has improved. I’m learning and stress testing new patterns that would have taken far longer pre-AI. I’m also working in new domains and tech stacks that would have taken me much longer to get up to speed on.

I would even say it's likely the opposite. My output as a programmer is now much higher than before, but I am losing my programming skills with each use of claude code.

People who use AI mindfully and actively can possibly improve.

The olden days of buidling skills and competencies are largely dying or dead when the skills and competencies are changing faster than skills and competency training ever intended to.

If things change fast, learning becomes even more important. And learning about the principles that don't change becomes most important of all.

Yup, continuous learning, the principles that don't change are in part identified and part still coming to the forefront.