Comment by jgord
21 hours ago
yes ... I do think that if humans stop thinking hard about existing problem domains .. they will lose that ability.
From which it then follows that _all_ technology and science become magical incantations dictated by a black-box oracle, whom everyone trusts and no one understands.
That could happen in a couple of decades.
"technology and science become magical incantations dictated by a black-box oracle, whom everyone trusts and no one understands"
I don't see why this would be a terrible thing.
This is what humanity has done for thousands of years. We do things manually for a long time, then invent an efficient way to automate it, and the skills to do things manually are gradually lost.
A car is a magic black box that we trust to move us around. A smartphone is a magic black box that we trust to connect to the rest of the world. AI is just the latest invention in a long line of magic black boxes that we trust. If you'd prefer to live your life without a car or smartphone or AI, it is perfectly acceptable to do so, and there are communities of people who do that.
I think I'm detecting a concern that "if we don't understand how it works, it could start doing dangerous things". To that I would say: even if something is a magic black box, we can still improve it and make it safer. To invent an airbag, you don't need to understand how a car works.