Post AvRTXesm3TRtXnvAxc by dougmerritt@mathstodon.xyz
 (DIR) More posts by dougmerritt@mathstodon.xyz
 (DIR) Post #AvRTXdaIsf51WEGuX2 by AmenZwa@mathstodon.xyz
       2025-06-24T01:28:47Z
       
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       Most young #IT practitioners whom I have mentored in recent years, unlike their predecessors, can no longer #read CS and EE textbooks.
       
 (DIR) Post #AvRTXesm3TRtXnvAxc by dougmerritt@mathstodon.xyz
       2025-06-24T01:33:24Z
       
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       @AmenZwa Hmm? What do you mean, "can no longer read" them??
       
 (DIR) Post #AvRTXfULnlVTQLVBWy by AmenZwa@mathstodon.xyz
       2025-06-24T01:42:55Z
       
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       @dougmerrittCS and EE theoretical textbooks are all Greek to them. (Of course in EE, it’s literally all Greek letters.)By “them”, I mean 20-40 age group IT kids, over here. Most of them graduates of DC area schools.It wasn’t like this, back in the day.
       
 (DIR) Post #AvRTXg4VdKQjEUQ3tI by ChuckMcManis@chaos.social
       2025-06-24T01:54:46Z
       
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       @AmenZwa @dougmerritt I'm curious if they are "okay" with that? (That they can't read).
       
 (DIR) Post #AvRTXgbTeknksjqOHI by screwlisp@gamerplus.org
       2025-06-24T01:58:03Z
       
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       @ChuckMcManis @dougmerritt @glitzersachen I was wondering if @AmenZwa was specifically referencing that pop research article that LLM use makes everyone worse at everything proportional to the LLM use (on the other hand, they don't feel like it is "really them" that became worse in the first place)
       
 (DIR) Post #AvRTXh85hUtCVt6R72 by AmenZwa@mathstodon.xyz
       2025-06-24T02:04:39Z
       
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       @screwlisp Ah, no; I haven’t read that LLM-generated article. No matter; I’ll have my LLM digest it for me into a 140-character summary.@ChuckMcManis @dougmerritt @glitzersachen
       
 (DIR) Post #AvRTXhxUcO0R5J9UES by screwlisp@gamerplus.org
       2025-06-24T02:05:31Z
       
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       @AmenZwa Hang on, the author was someone on the Mastodon, left me go fishing for it.@ChuckMcManis @dougmerritt @glitzersachen
       
 (DIR) Post #AvRTXiY0QdDGuYEe92 by screwlisp@gamerplus.org
       2025-06-24T02:09:10Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       https://mastodon.social/@nataliyakosmyna/114695345710813929 (etc etc etc etc).@AmenZwa @ChuckMcManis @dougmerritt @glitzersachen
       
 (DIR) Post #AvRTXj5KQjrsZtpG5I by dougmerritt@mathstodon.xyz
       2025-06-24T02:20:39Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @screwlisp Interpolating that Natali post for convenience:"𝐈𝐕. 𝐁𝐞𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭- Quoting Ability: LLM users failed to quote accurately, while Brain-only participants showed robust recall and quoting skills.- Ownership: Brain-only group claimed full ownership of their work; LLM users expressed either no ownership or partial ownership.- Critical Thinking: Brain-only participants cared more about 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 and 𝘸𝘩𝘺 they wrote; LLM users focused on 𝘩𝘰𝘸.- Cognitive Debt: Repeated LLM use led to shallow content repetition and reduced critical engagement. This suggests a buildup of "cognitive debt",  deferring mental effort at the cost of long-term cognitive depth."@ChuckMcManis @glitzersachen @AmenZwa
       
 (DIR) Post #AvRTXn0VqaOOk7bT8K by AmenZwa@mathstodon.xyz
       2025-06-24T02:15:18Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @screwlisp Well, this was obvious to the likes of us in IT, who had been observing this trend, firsthand, since the StackOverflow days. But I suppose only in the LLM age did this “paste first, ask questions never” phenomenon attracts the sociologists’ attention. Now, was this driven by the LLM’s “attention” mechanism, I wonder.@ChuckMcManis @dougmerritt @glitzersachen