this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2026
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it's getting to the point where I notice people say it a lot, especially IRL now for whatever reason recently.

And for clarity I'm not in research or anything, so these people just mean 'LLM/image gen', not utilities like OCR or (usually not) transcription.

Some have argued it's just more efficient (which I can kind of get), while others think you're actively hindering your intelligence somehow.

On the first point:

I've tried it occasionally to see how it compares to my own skill, and while it produces a functional result, it's always very derivative work to the point where you can find things with the exact same names of other 'public' (but not libre) works, and often isn't the ideal solution to what it targets. So I can see how you can get things out of it, but it never felt really that profound to me.

But for the second... isn't this supposed to be the tool for people to do things they aren't experienced in? If anything, you probably need to be able to understand how to write pertaining to the task so the token probabilities are biased toward writing from that area.

And even then, if all you end up doing is prompting AI, then wouldn't you ultimately serve no purpose outside of being glorified QA?

I guess I'm trying to figure out what exactly non-users would be 'falling behind' in that affects them more than those who use AI?

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[–] ReconciliationTime22128@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It means they preach bullshit.

What society before us had AI, and how much more successful were they? Einstein didn’t need AI. Newton didn’t need AI. Oppenheimer didn’t need AI… The list goes on. Who does, other than the lazy and those who can’t think for themselves?

[–] thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 19 points 6 days ago

They think there's some skill necessary to use LLMs for some reason

[–] Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 12 points 6 days ago

It's a desperate marketing strategy based on the classic "peer pressure" technique. "Everyone's doing it. You don't want to be the only one who isn't."

[–] BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

They think AI is as life changing to our society as the internet is as steam engines were long ago. They're trying to promote its use because it doesn't have a good specific use for day to day. If anything AI has made the internet MUCH worse, there's so much AI Slop media on youtube and similar that I don't look at much new stuff anymore because of it.

[–] Funkt4st1c@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Ai is more like adding lead to gasoline; it does stuff we could already do ever so slightly better, but for an immense and irreversible cost.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

i wouldn't say better, a better analogy, is cheaper gasoline, with worst results than more expensive gasoline.

[–] emmowo@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

honestly, depending on how it affects media in the future, it could really have a similar effect on us, even if it doesn't directly poison people. Poorly presented information/misinformation has, and will certainly continue to result in so many preventable tragedies.

[–] Routhinator@startrek.website 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You'll fall behind in the race to the lowest IQ as they all turn their thinking over to AI and get lazier while you continue to exercise your brain.

Fuck 'em.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 6 days ago

its already been shown HS and college grads have even poorer reading writing skills due to it.

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Levergism. To get what you want in the world you need power to get power you need leverage to the keys to power.

For working class folks that tends to be in the form of withholding labor, providing labor both of which are dictated by supply and demand. So learning a specialty in an in demand field or getting/making tools or skills that make you more demand is common technique. (Organizing with others to be noted also a huge way to do this)

They are arguing that learning AI is like learning to drive a forklift or an excavator. Like sure you could use a shovel or set up pullies but it's just faster and thus more valuable to use those tools.

The difference being we don't actually know what tools and varients of those tools actually make sense. So it's like saying you need to learn to use motors to a 1900s factor worker.

[–] Megamanexent@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 days ago

This is so spot on. VFD's revolutionized manufacturing, but telling that to someone in the 1900 would have been crazy.

[–] JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip 7 points 6 days ago

They mean that they have lost all ability to think for themselves.

[–] Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

If you're actually curious, same idea as not knowing how to use a search engine in the 2000s/2010s

It's widely ubiquitous technology that can be extremely useful if used properly and not knowing how will waste a lot of time and likely frustrate you to the point you just give up or ask you family tech person.

If like you can't drive a car, that makes it harder to find a good paying job.

[–] BenevolentOne@infosec.pub 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

It's very similar to learning how to use a computer in 1995. I'm just old enough to remember meeting these people.

There is this thing, which, supposedly, can help you do your job better, it's being pushed by management, and it is sometimes expensive, often confusing, and obsoletes the skills you spent years to acquire.

Fast-forward 30 years, and it's very, very, very difficult to find people to talk to who still argue computing doesn't belong in the workplace, and that using a computer isn't essential for virtually all work.

The reason it is difficult to find these people, is because they were left behind.

[–] HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 4 points 6 days ago

Blindly trusting google results when copy/pasting into the terminal is sketchy. Doing that with AI is even worse.

Go ahead and blindly follow the LLM, have fun.

[–] anewfox@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 days ago

people who can afford to pay for LLM tokens are always going to be fine as tokens get more expensive. this is just a thinly veiled way to say an increasing amount of people are going to end up poor and completely fucked as AI pushes all of the resources upwards.

[–] StinkySocialist@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 days ago

Gonna be the odd one out here so I'm gonna start with this. The companies that push AI and the way they are powering large models you'd use only is to the detriment of working class people and the planet.

That being said it's a tool and a useful one. It makes mistakes and it's not as smart as a person but it can make certain tasks much easier and faster. It's like having a fleet of interns ready to rush through something. It makes certain kinds of office tasks much much faster. So if you don't use it and your coworkers do suddenly it looks like you're the weak link.

I've found a lot of uses for it myself. Of course I always need to double check and correct it which takes time but that is often easier and faster than starting from scratch.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 6 days ago

AI/ATS has worsened job prospects thats for sure.

[–] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 2 points 6 days ago

Kinda like that statement about no one being able to go a day without using it. Its weird and does not hold water logic wise. This seems to be the same, it is just a desperate sales tactic from people who put to much of themselves into the tech. Sunk cost and all that.

However the over use of AI seems to be a great way of being wrong faster.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 days ago

I'm going to rip my balls off

[–] hig13@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

This will likely get lost in the sea of comments here... But my opinion to "getting left behind if you don't know how to use ai" is simply, "no, you'll be left behind if you don't know how to engineer ai." everyone who uses "ai"'s end product will be in the same playing field, if you don't know how to build and engineer it, then you're in the same boat as everyone else who knows how to put together a sentence and a question.

If you know how to build a custom ai engine that can do a specific task for a specific field, then you'll be ahead. If you know how to write out a question to prompt ai, then you can speak a language, congrats, you're just like everyone else around you. Along with that, if you don't know anything about the things you're asking the ai about, then you don't know how to determine whether it's giving you accurate information, which makes it useless, maybe not 100% useless, but like 85% useless it something. Can you build a house with a hammer alone? No. You need materials, you need ways to cut wood, you need structural knowledge about building a house before you can build a safe livable house and more than one tool in the tool box.

Idk, it's one of those things that just kind of feels like something someone would say about something they were told they should say about that thing. This isn't like the invention of personal computers. I think it's much more simple then that when it comes to how we interact with it, the impressive knowledge is more about how to engineer it, and how to deploy it for specific use cases. Like the difference between building an efficient refrigerator and using one.

The other problem with not knowing how to build and engineer and deploy your own locally run ai, is that you will become dependant on this 3rd party service and end up paying loads of money for something you wouldn't have had to if you weren't "left behind". That's what the big corps are hoping happens with all this free access or cheap access, it's all a scheme to get everyone hooked, so they can pull the rug out from under em and force them to pay astronomical amounts of money to cover the losses they've been gambling with this whole time. Also just my opinion but, seems like a pretty decent theory to me lol.

Just speaking into the void here, don't really expect any replies from me, I don't have that much more to offer, just figured why not share my thoughts on the subject, it's one everyone seems to be taking about at the moment. I'll definitely read anyone's replies though ❤️

[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 1 points 6 days ago

Just from a purely defensive standpoint, my coworker still thinks if an image has the correct amount of fingers than it's not ai

[–] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world -1 points 6 days ago

The way I see it, AI is like with any other things, such as botox and plastic surgery and dating apps. People vilified botox and plastic surgeries as unnatural and anyone who had them are losers. People who used dating apps were seen as losers. Now, those are normalised and became part of the furniture, metaphorically.

Love it or hate it, AI will became part of human lives, like furnitures. Younger generations will use them and accept them. Older folks like us will think youths are weird and losers, while the latter thinks the former are fossils who can't keep up with the times.

I am personally not against or pro-AI, it is useful to certain things, but i recognise that it is monopolised by only few who don't have the best interests for the many. In any case, AI will be used en masse eventually as more and more people will use it, especially by younger generations. In that sense, those who refused to use AI in any way will be left behind by the times. But whether AI will have ultimate positive or negative impact on human society, only time will tell.

[–] weps@lemmy.world -1 points 6 days ago

Myself from 3 years ago is definitely behind on me today with AI.

I'm so much faster and better in getting information than I was back then. I had to read Wikipedia pages, some books and 10 websites to get answers. Now I have an AI in my pocket that has already read all that.

People will show up at job interviews with 10 agents and beat the anti AI person.

I don't think our daily lives are very influenced at this point but the economic output for sure is. Who reaps the benefits, maybe not me directly.

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