this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
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how do I accept that my father is declining? (linux.community)
submitted 1 day ago by eli04@linux.community to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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my father was a university professor and an expert in his field, writing and publishing.

I'm not happy with my job and I'm deciding if I should keep it or study a bachelor, meaning less money for at least 3 years, working part time, relocating... for an uncertain future.

I explained my fears and the situation to my father thoroughly. This once brilliant person capable of giving me several points of view about several topics pasted my questions to an AI engine and sent me its answers, it's like he didn't even try to answer the questions himself. wtf?

It's sad and scary: a person I once could confide in, ask for guidance is now... disappearing? It's like he disregarded the emotional component completely.

He is now 78 years old. Am I being unrealistic?

And the AI answer? gets several things wrong and doesn't tell me anything new but holy shit, the way the answer is phrased (my personal opinion, what I think is...), no wonder so many seniors believe they're talking to an actual human, which is scary on so many levels, because the engine hallucinated several false facts and presented them so neatly packaged, seniors take them as correct fact.

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[โ€“] spankinspinach@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There's a cognitive offloading effect that happens with AI. I don't know if it's been scientifically validated yet, but anecdotally the speed, perceived accuracy and authoritative packaging makes AI easy to trust. A reasonable person could input a "help me evaluate this situation", and an AI would offer a reasonable-adjacent response. It falls to the user to evaluate the quality of the response, and most ppl are not aware of this caveat. AI is a great tool for situational overviews and perceptive blind spots, but the user is and always should be the final arbiter.

Based solely on the info you shared, your father may not be declining, he may be a victim of being an average AI user.

Is his cognition failing elsewhere? Is he doing things that make no sense to someone operating at a normal capacity? Human aging is incredibly complex, and ailing appears differently for everyone. Don't let a complex tool like non-expert AI usage define your perception of your father. It's a probabilistic algorithm, eminently less complex than the human mind