Another Annoying Alarm Goes Off: Big AIT Tech is Deskilling Experts
June 23, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I think I have pounded on the AI alarm button previously. Here i go again: Pound, pound, pound. I read “Is AI Ruining Our Skills? Early Results Are In. And They Are Not Good.” Is this a study about doom scrolling GenAI kids? Is this a study about hormone infused 14 year olds? Is this a study about a bored 20 something working at Dairy Queen? Nope. Nope. And nope.
I wanted the colonoscopy cartoon but guard rails are there to protect me. Thanks, MidJourney. Barely good enough.
The write up is about doctors and engineers. The Nature article says:
Seventy per cent of nurses and 77% of physicians, for example, are worried about losing their skills because of over-reliance on AI systems, according to a survey of US health-care workers published earlier this month. Their fear might be justified. Evidence suggests that AI-driven ‘deskilling’ is starting to happen in medicine, computer science and other fields. Researchers are now discussing how to preserve important human expertise in the age of AI.
People, even smart adults, love convenience. Why walk? Drive. Why hit the farmer’s market? Go to TraderJoe’s. Why read a dull PDF about a new process? Let ChatGPT present “facts” in McDonald’s chicken nuggets of information. It is 2026. Go fast. Accelerate. Do what makes one feel groovy.
The write up uses a fun colonoscopy data set. I learned but did not experience:
Once physicians began using it [an AI tool], their performance dropped significantly whenever the system was unavailable. During the three-month period before the AI tool was introduced, the specialists found at least one adenoma during 28.4% of colonoscopies. During the three-month period after the tool was introduced, the adenoma detection rate for colonoscopies performed without AI assistance decreased to 22.4%.
Great. Just miss that precursor to colon cancer or overlook the cancer itself.
The BAIT (big AI tech) folks say that using AI makes a person smarter. Yeah, maybe in a marketing meeting. But when doing the colonoscopy thing, AI makes some smart people lazy and/or dumb.
Several observations are warranted:
- Learning, even for smart people, is hard work. People love short cuts. Short cuts in learning mean an individual is working to make oneself less smart.
- AI companies are in “if we build it, people will come.” That may be true. But if what’s delivered is intellectual heroin, is this great idea an appropriate one for society? Of course not. The goal is money and to be a winner or a monopoly or all three.
- Are studies of the negative effect of AI going to prove that AI is a great step forward? Maybe? Maybe not?
Net net: The new fire seems to burn expertise. But I am a dinobaby, and I work the dumb way. What do I know? I struggle to order a vanilla cone at the local ice cream shop. The service professional has the scoop in one hand and a mobile phone in the other.
Stephen E Arnold, June 23, 2026
Comments
Got something to say?
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
