I keep thinking that the path to Safe AI is going to involve just as much focus on Saving Human Intelligence as it does on building Safe Superintelligence.
Having spent the last month in “school mode,” I’ve felt firsthand how much harder it is to learn new concepts in your 30s, complete tasks at speed, and rebuild skills that haven’t been exercised in a while.
Getting used to leveraging AI as a crutch over the past few years doesn’t help.
I’m increasingly convinced that Wall-E style mental atrophy is far more likely, and potentially more dangerous, than a Terminator-style Skynet.
If someone is out of physical shape, the signs are obvious and visible. If someone is out of mental shape, it’s much harder to gauge.
The challenge is that being physically or mentally fit doesn’t always have direct commercial ROI when things just need to get done. Economic incentives align more closely with short/mid-term outputs, with long-term trends only coming after the former has been achieved.
It’s kind of crazy to think that within 10 years, some derivative of Neuralink, or a product inspired by it, could have its own GLP-1 moment.
What’s even more interesting is that the breakthrough may not be a pill at all.
It may simply be having the data and observability needed to precisely tune the stressors required for learning, adaptation, and growth. Just enough challenge to improve, without tipping into burnout.
This was inspired by a post from @yacineMTB:
you can outsource your thinking but you cannot outsource your understanding