This study—from Anthropic, no less—is rather damning of the entire generative AI project.
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This study—from Anthropic, no less—is rather damning of the entire generative AI project. In code creation, the realm where it should shine, not only were the time gains marginal, but developers understood their code far, far less. And they didn't even have more fun doing the work!
But to me the most concerning part of this study is the fact that Anthropic could not get the control (non-AI) group to comply. Up to 35% of the "control" in the initial studies used AI tools despite instructions not to. What kind of behavior does that sound like?
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This study—from Anthropic, no less—is rather damning of the entire generative AI project. In code creation, the realm where it should shine, not only were the time gains marginal, but developers understood their code far, far less. And they didn't even have more fun doing the work!
But to me the most concerning part of this study is the fact that Anthropic could not get the control (non-AI) group to comply. Up to 35% of the "control" in the initial studies used AI tools despite instructions not to. What kind of behavior does that sound like?
@mttaggart I’m not that smart, MT… what kind of behavior (what’s the answer)?
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@mttaggart I’m not that smart, MT… what kind of behavior (what’s the answer)?
@scottwilson Addictive! It's not even an analogy anymore; generative AI is an addictive substance that causes cognitive decline. If you cannot stop yourself from using it even when compelled to for a scientific study, seems like you have a dependency.
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This study—from Anthropic, no less—is rather damning of the entire generative AI project. In code creation, the realm where it should shine, not only were the time gains marginal, but developers understood their code far, far less. And they didn't even have more fun doing the work!
But to me the most concerning part of this study is the fact that Anthropic could not get the control (non-AI) group to comply. Up to 35% of the "control" in the initial studies used AI tools despite instructions not to. What kind of behavior does that sound like?
What’s the problem with that? If they fire all the engineers, then they’ll be nobody to be confused.
Problem solved!
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@scottwilson Addictive! It's not even an analogy anymore; generative AI is an addictive substance that causes cognitive decline. If you cannot stop yourself from using it even when compelled to for a scientific study, seems like you have a dependency.
@mttaggart Ah, now I get it. Dang.
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@scottwilson Addictive! It's not even an analogy anymore; generative AI is an addictive substance that causes cognitive decline. If you cannot stop yourself from using it even when compelled to for a scientific study, seems like you have a dependency.
@mttaggart @scottwilson I can attest to that. I’m not a coder, but a marketer who got caught up in the pressure and ended up using AI about 1-2 times a week for a year.
I quit end of June last year, and I really do mean “quit” because I feel like an addict in recovery counting down the months I’ve been sober. I had very severe cravings to touch the chatbots when I stopped, and I still feel them at least once a month now.
The itch is “this task is hard and frustrating, what if I just asked AI to help me just this once?”. It’s gotten much easier to ignore but god. I didn’t even use this stuff everyday or like it at any point!
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@mttaggart @scottwilson I can attest to that. I’m not a coder, but a marketer who got caught up in the pressure and ended up using AI about 1-2 times a week for a year.
I quit end of June last year, and I really do mean “quit” because I feel like an addict in recovery counting down the months I’ve been sober. I had very severe cravings to touch the chatbots when I stopped, and I still feel them at least once a month now.
The itch is “this task is hard and frustrating, what if I just asked AI to help me just this once?”. It’s gotten much easier to ignore but god. I didn’t even use this stuff everyday or like it at any point!
@mariyadelano @scottwilson Thank you for sharing this experience, and I'm really impressed with your resolve!
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@mariyadelano @scottwilson Thank you for sharing this experience, and I'm really impressed with your resolve!
@mttaggart @scottwilson thank you for such a good post summarizing the Anthropic study - I was trying to share the paper with some folks earlier, but they aren’t used to reading academic docs, so your post has been a much easier distillation to send them
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