alt Hacker NewsTo me, it is not the right advice. "Stop using that tool, that tool will make you lazy" means we would be digging holes by hand instead of using shovels, then excavators.
The "lazy answer box" is a tool, learn to use the tool, understand its limitations, as act accordingly. If you prefer not to use it because you like coming up with answers yourself, because it is against your principles, or because you can do better without it, that's fine. Hand tools still have a place in the workshop after all, and craftsmen know to use them. But if AI is helpful to you and lets you spare some cognitive load for other tasks, by all means use it, it would be stupid not to.
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Over in the "AI is not a tool" post there's this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50063732
Which says that it's a tool for querying and summarization, but not a tool for reading or writing, because it helps you to do something different from those.
(Yes I know, don't cross the streams. I just thought it was a shame for this nice distinction to languish over there when you need it over here.)
The problem is that while it is entirely possible in principle to use AI as a tool, not a surrogate, the actual interfaces to widely available AI models constantly push their users towards delegating their thinking to AI, rather than assisting their thinking. I constantly have to stop Claude from just doing the thing for me instead of presenting me with options or evidence and letting me choose how to proceed.
I guess my counterpoint is bluntly - no-one will not be using the tool at their day-job.
It requires so much extra discipline to think for yourself and not use it, you will be forced to use it in your job or be seen as a Luddite and your ability to think for yourself in the domain will diminish over time - your domain thinking muscle will gradually atrophy from lack of use.
Why would any of us bother thinking hard, when there is no financial incentive to doing so ?
Your analogy fails with shovels and excavators .. because General synthetic intelligence is not a single purpose narrow 'tool'. near-future AI is equivalent to an alien intelligent species competing for resources, or equivalent to a cheaper smarter non-human 'outsource worker'.
In the context of education, your analogy doesn't work. We still have physical education in schools because, even though people can now use automated tools for physical work rather than doing it by hand, it is still useful for people to be physically fit.
A wheelchair is also a tool! A very efficient one too! People claim they've 2x'd their energy efficiency by not ever walking or standing, and they are much more happy now that they don't need to suffer the pain of walking! I'm thinking of amputating my feet just to make footoids seethe more!
Can we explore the digging holes analogy a bit more?
Digging by hand with a shovel involves
1. Assessing the terrain and checking any documented or obvious obstacles (subsurface water, gas, electricity etc)
2. Planning the approach to digging the hole, most efficient angle, and ensuring that collapse doesn't occur
3. Organising disposal
4. Digging the hole
5. Dealing with any unforeseen issues (old tree roots, old foundations etc)
This is exactly the same whether digging by hand or using an excavator. The excavator isn't automating stages 1, 2, 3, or 5. It's just speeding up the 4th stage and only if there aren't stage 5 issues present.
LLMs when employed in a manner on the extreme end of the vibe coding spectrum are automating every stage of the process. If the excavator was hooked up to an LLM and left to run all stages of digging (extreme vibe digging?), I'd argue that yes, the operator is becoming lazy, and is running a very dangerous operation.