this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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Similar criticisms have probably been leveled at many other technologies in the past, such as computers in general, typewriters, pocket calculators etc. It is true that the use of these tools and technologies has probably contributed to a decline in the skills required for activities such as memorization, handwriting or mental calculation. However, I believe there is an important difference to chatbots: While typewriters (or computers) usually produce very readable text (much better than most people's handwriting), pocket calculators perform calculations just fine and information from a reputable source retrieved online isn't any less correct than one that had been memorized (probably more so), the same couldn't be said about chatbots and LLMs. They aren't known to produce accurate or useful output in a reliable way - therefore many of the skills that are being lost by relying on them might not be replaced with something better.
You need an expertise to tell where the error is happening or even notice it at all.
The main argument against LLMs is that you don't get a systemic knowledge how e.g. the code works. Moreso, as long as it works right, you aren't motivated to look into it and understand just how it does so. That renders you unable to see and fix mistakes.
If you are an experienced task-doer, yes, a quick glance can help you with that. But if you start out with LLM vibe-coding, you jump over a couple of steps, and when confronted with an error, you need to apply more force (learning things you skipped) to make it right.
Personally, I grew seriously ill when we had math classes concerning sin\cos\tg\ctg basics and going forward I felt I just don't get it at all as the class marched towards further subjects based on them. It costed me way more labor to get on the same page than if I've never been absent. The same could've happened, I believe, if I could upload my homework into LLM, only to face exams where I can't use it anymore, or if I came upon real life applications - and surprisingly I did.