> Frank Herbert (yeah, I know I'm a nerd), in God Emperor of Dune, has a character observe: "What do such machines really do? They increase the number of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinking; there's the real danger." Herbert was writing science fiction. I'm writing about my office. The distance between those two things has gotten uncomfortably small.
The author is a bit naive here:
1. Society only progresses when people are specialised and can delegate their thinking
2. Specialisation has been happening for millenia. Agriculture allowed people to become specialised due to abundance of food
3. We accept delegation of thinking in every part of life. A manager delegates thinking to their subordinates. I delegate some thinking to my accountant
4. People will eventually get the hang of using AI to do the optimum amount of delegation such that they still retain what is necessary and delegate what is not necessary. People who don't do this optimally will get outcompeted
The author just focuses on some local problems like skill atrophy but does not see the larger picture and how specific pattern has been repeating a lot in humanity's history.