The brain is like a muscle essentially, you either use it or you lose it.

Just as your legs would atrophy if you used a mobility scooter to get everywhere and never walked even though you could, outsourcing one's thinking means your ability to think will atrophy.

Overreliance on any tool produces dependency and diminishes the ability to do things one's self. In the case of AI, this could be especially damaging given the extent to which many people already rely on it for basic things such as information or problem solving.

The ramifications of an entire society losing its ability to think for itself is quite alarming.

It is always hilarious seeing people trying to use a paper map on the Amazing race...

Just go without internet for a day to see how much you rely on always online already. 

Internet outages are semi-frequent where I live, and aside from the minor annoyance of not being able to post on forums or watch Youtube for entertainment, I get by okay. 

I know my way around the area without google maps and I don't use ChatGPT or any of that stuff.

Personally I don't like being too reliant on technology, I didn't even get my first smartphone til I was like 25.

Same here, I got rid of my smart phone at age 34, 17 years ago, never looked back.

But I see it with my children, and the urge to 'Google it', check the weather, the news etc is still there. Plus going by without a smartphone is getting more challenging. I know how QR codes work, never used them though.

With maps I memorize where to go, or write down the names of streets / directions to look for. Memorization is enough usually. I worked on GPS navigation for over a decade, never use it lol. But I do know the area around me now in an 60km radius from road biking for many years. 

However 'just look it up on the internet' is our great reliance on the internet. I don't have yellow pages anymore, no phonebook, no encyclopedia, no travel guides, no DIY manuals anymore for anything. A day without internet is fine, going back to no internet at all is a lot harder. 



Anyway AI will erode critical thinking skills or worse. (Switching to high brain, edible is kicking in lol) Is it pure greed that turns billionaires 'evil' or lacking empathy? Or is it that they have surrounded themselves with yes men/servants that do everything for them, whatever they ask of them. That's what people see as 'good AI'. A personal servant doing everything you ask without hesitation. (Of course the main difference between a billionaire with servants and people using AI servant will always be the former can get away with everything)

Or solve everything...