Ask HN: Are We Getting Dumber?

A Hacker News user asks whether society is getting dumber due to reliance on AI, misinformation, and declining critical thinking, citing a relative who identified critical thinking as the key to success.

I have a very accomplished relative who I trust a lot and has been a role model for me. I've always trusted their judgement and they've never steered me wrong to date. I was recently having a conversation with them about sort of everything. During the conversation I essentially asked what separates success from failure it was an open ended across the board kind of question and their response was "critical thinking skills". Seems like I simple answer, but I've also always felt the same way. Some of my biggest pet peeves are people just accepting outcomes without explanation, writing off things as merely coincidence without digging deeper, or offloading the burden of thinking to someone else. Given the rapid pace of AI and it's ability to be a crutch, the misinformation and disinformation that plaques the internet, and people just settling for the simplest answer without questioning or thinking through the methodology to get there or whether or not it's true, ARE WE GETTING DUMBER? It's an honest but kind of scary question and I'm just curious what others think. We're taught we'll only get smarter with time as long as we trust the scientific method and other empirical philosophies, but are those days behind us? Distrust in science, true experts, and everything that we see, has a profound negative effect and I guess I just worry. I don't want to live in the world of Idiocracy I'm thinking of the movie, watch it if you don't know what I'm talking about lol but I feel like we're there already... Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48954653 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48954653 Points: 1 Comments: 0