Next time someone tells you using GenAI is like using calculators, feel free to point out the flaw in the analogy. Both make us faster and extend what we can do, and both can erode skills.
But not the same kind.

Losing arithmetic skills does not undermine cognitive capacity. Losing understanding does, especially when it is replaced by an illusion of understanding.

And understanding is the foundation of reasoning, explanation, justification, metacognition, learning.

Anthropic's new paper gives insights about how AI use impacts #skillformation and is especially relevant for education. But I believe it also erodes skills after they have been formed. So... how about reading that whole article instead of the summary? Underline, annotate before dumping everything on NotebookLM?

#illusionofunderstanding
#atrophyisnotatrophy
#skillsatrophy