this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2026
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I was pretty good at maths in school, and throughout my adult life there have been times when doing mental math has been helpful.
I must've saved quite a few minutes, perhaps even an hour total.
But it has never been that important, that using the calculator I always have in my pocket would've somehow changed anything in the moment.
In all, it actually doesn't feel like that helpful of a skill, though your milage will vary depending on your job.
In saying that, LLM's aren't going anywhere, and the panic around peoples stupification is probably a mask for ignorance or indifference which would exist regardless.
The key skills you learn from math is not arithmetic. If you're rationale for math not being helpful is that you don't find yourself doing arithmetic, you're not focusing on the main takeaway from math. The key skill is problem solving and logical processing.
Precisely.
The problem is the emerging inability to think.
Sure, but that isn't the point I'm making.
Consider that my analogy was referring specifically to arithmetic, while we have calculators in our pockets.
Consider a different analogy if you want, spell checkers.
If they came out now, I'm sure you'd have people arguing that people will never learn how to spell.
I hope I'm wrong and the worry turns out to be unfounded, but absent any meaningful regulation for the evident effects of LLMs on people's cognitive abilities and mental health, I don't have much of a reason to assume there won't be disastrous effects in the future.