Technology

The only one actually relevant to "cognitive decline" is the second, do we know what the math questions actually were?

Also I wasn't making an anology, I'm seriously asking if we'd see the same drop-off, as I think the root of the problem is moreso that humans will generally choose to use less effort rather then more, so any tool that reduces effort might see the same amount of drop off in end result when taken away.

Going with analogies though, people having cars mean less people learning about/using horses/carriages/bikes and as cars are increasingly more complex and less repairable, less people put in the effort to learn how to fix them if something goes wrong.

Ultimately though I have to wonder what does that really matter in the long term? Did people stop doing/understanding math once calculators became common?

One of the points the paper makes is people who used it to help rather then solve the problem for them performed better once it was taken away, which adheres with my own observations on how people use certain tools vs seek to understand how those tool work and deeper their understanding. However again, is it really a problem that a majority of Americans (for example) don't know how to change the oil on their car? Does that actually indicate they're less intelligent or unable to rationalize/logically process information? Or do they generally put the effort that would be put into learning how their car works into other efforts.

Unfortunately I think many are simply too burned out with day to day life to care about much learning at all, which is a much larger issue IMO.

Though I will say I do think AI/LLMs will only reinforce that behavior, I'm not sure if that'll be all bad or really all that different then the existing status quo prior to their spread.

Edit: We could talk about the economic impact it will have, but the root cause is the same as all the other wealth inequality, and I can easily forsee how LLMs could be much more equitable rather then used as vehicles for enrichment.