AI and Learning: Does a Retail Worker Have to Know How to Make Change?
November 14, 2025
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
I love the concept of increasingly shallow understanding. There is a simple beauty in knowing that you can know anything with smart software and a mobile phone. I read “Students Using ChatGPT Beware: Real Learning Takes Legwork, Study Finds.” What a revelation? Wow! Really?
What a quaint approach to smart software. This write up describes a weird type of reasoning. Using a better tool limits one’s understanding. I am not sure about you, but the idea of communicating by have a person run 26 miles to deliver a message and then fall over dead seems slow, somewhat unreliable, and potentially embarrassing. What if the deliver of the message expires in the midst of a kiddie birthday party. Why not embrace the technology of the mobile phone. Use a messaging app and zap the information to the recipient?
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
Following this logic that learning the old fashioned way will have many dire consequences, why not research topics by:
- Using colloquium held at a suitable religious organization’s facilities. Avoid math that references infinity, zeros, or certain numbers, and the process worked. Now math is a mental exercise. It is more easily mastered by doing concepts, not calculations. If something tricky is required, reach for smart software or that fun-loving Wolfram Mathematica software. Beats an abacus or making marks on cave walls.
- Find a library with either original documents (foul papers), scrolls, or books. Read them and take notes, preferably on a wax tablet or some sheepskin, the Microsoft Word back in the day.
- Use Google. Follow links. Reach conclusions. Assemble “factoids” into knowledge. Ignore the SEO-choked pages. Skip the pages hopelessly out of date when the article suggests that one use XyWrite as a word processor. Sidestep the ravings of a super genius predicting that Hollywood films are the same as maps of the future or advisors offering tips for making a million dollars tax free.
The write up presents the startling assertion:
The researchers concluded that, while large language models (LLMs) are exceptionally good at spitting out fluent answers at the press of a button, people who rely on synthesized AI summaries for research typically don’t come away with materially deeper knowledge. Only by digging into sources and piecing information together themselves do people tend to build the kind of lasting understanding that sticks…
Who knew?
The article includes this startling and definitely anti-AI statement:
A recent BBC-led investigation found that four of the most popular chatbots misrepresented news content in almost half their responses, highlighting how the same tools that promise to make learning easier often blur the boundary between speedy synthesis and confident-sounding fabrication.
I reacted to the idea that embracing a new technology damages a student’s understanding of a complex subject. If that were the case, why have humans compiled a relatively consistent track record in making information easier to find, absorb, and use. Dip-in, get what you need, and don’t read the entire book is a trendy view supported by some forward-thinking smart people.
This is intellectual grazing. I think it is related to snacking 24×7 and skipping what once were foolishly called “regular meals.” In my visits to Silicon Valley, there are similar approaches to difficult learning challenges; for example, forming a stable relationship, understanding the concept of ethical compass, and making decisions that do no harm. (Hey, remember that slogan from the Dark Ages of Internet time?)
The write up concludes:
One of the more striking takeaways of the study was that young people’s growing reliance on AI summaries for quick-hit facts could “deskill” their ability to engage in active learning. However they also noted that this only really applies if AI replaces independent study entirely — meaning LLMs are best used to support, rather than substitute, critical thinking. The authors concluded: “We thus believe that while LLMs can have substantial benefits as an aid for training and education in many contexts, users must be aware of the risks — which may often go unnoticed — of overreliance. Hence, one may be better off not letting ChatGPT, Google, or another LLM ‘do the Googling.'”
Now that’s a remedy that will be music to Googzilla’s nifty looking ear slits. Use Google, just skip the AI.
I want to point out that doing things the old fashioned way may be impossible, impractical, or dangerous. Rejecting newer technologies provides substantive information about the people who are in rejection mode. The trick, in my dinobaby opinion, is to raise children in an environment that encourages a positive self concept, presents a range of different learning mechanisms, and uses nifty technology with parental involvement.
For the children not exposed to this type of environment in their formative years, it will be unnecessary for these lucky people to be permanently happy. Remember the old saying: If ignorance is bliss, hello, happy person.
No matter how shallow the mass of students become and remain, a tiny percentage will learn the old fashioned way. These individuals will be just like the knowledge elite today: Running the fastest and most powerful vehicles on the Information Superhighway. Watch out for wobbling Waymos. Those who know stuff could become roadkill.
Stephen E Arnold, November 14, 2025
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