#Atrophy
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rebeccasolnit.bsky.social
The human intelligence atrophy aspect of AI also deserves more attention:
mford.bsky.social Matt Ford @mford.bsky.social · 1d
Ezra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?”

Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...
So the message of this research out of China, where you were seeing a lot of kids using A.I. to help them, was that when they were using the A.I., they were getting things done faster. But it turned out that the skills they were learning were not holding, that their actual personal performance, at least in the way we traditionally measure it, was degrading. What do you think when you hear that? The last part — I completely agree. Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness. Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter? That’s my question for you. Yeah. I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does. But there must be some set of skills that matter. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not those. We’re going to discover new ones. Just maybe not those. There are a lot of skills that don’t matter. My first confession, I actually don’t know my address. And I —— I don’t really believe that to be true. It’s completely true. Janine will tell you and Lori will tell you. One day I had to pump gas — it was a few years ago. They needed my ZIP code, and I panicked. I didn’t know my ZIP code. I don’t know my telephone number. I forget these things. I can live with it. But let me take the other side because I don’t want to fall into a thing where, because some skills can be safely offloaded —— Yeah. I also can’t get anywhere without a mapping system now. Never could, frankly. But I’m a big reader. And one of the skills I really value, one of the capacities I have that I really value is an attention span formed on physical books. You’re a big reader. I’ve read about the kind of reading you do. And there is, prior to A.I., a lot of concern and noticing among college professors and others that the way people use the internet has probably shortened attention spans. Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off. Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off. Yeah. Well, I think that we’re going to lose some finer intellectual dexterity, but we’re going to be better systems thinkers. Today’s engineers are far better systems thinkers than I was when I graduated from school. But I was a much better transistor thinker. What do you mean by systems thinker? They think of large systems. Today’s computers have trillions, hundreds of trillions of transistors in them. When I first graduated from school, the first chip I worked on had 200 transistors. I knew every one of them by name. No engineer does that today. Most engineers now work well above the transistor, well above the functionality, and they’re cobbling things together to do things. So you need to think much more about systems and interactions of systems. So some of the lower-level knowledge is gone.
September 24, 2026 at 10:42 PM
jocat.net
How I'm fighting off the post-subathon atrophy
June 5, 2026 at 2:34 PM
carlquintanilla.bsky.social
“.. cognitive atrophy ..” 👀

@cnbc.com
www.cnbc.com/2026/08/24/g...
August 24, 2026 at 3:08 PM
iwriteok.bsky.social
nah think i will continue to do my writing and thinking in-house and not atrophy my brain to send faster emails
boogaloubrown.bsky.social Boogaloubrown @boogaloubrown.bsky.social · Jun 4
40 and up crew please don’t think you you won’t need AI. Learn that shit before you turn into our parents with cell phones!
June 5, 2025 at 1:18 AM
rationaltexan.bsky.social
As is muscle atrophy.

Once again it’s Hitler but STUPIDER.
August 18, 2025 at 4:50 AM
frankblackthings.bsky.social
It's crazy how the skills that are okay to lose are the exact ones he's let atrophy. Astounding coincidence.
September 24, 2026 at 4:18 PM
maysuser.name
ranked competitive cock atrophy
August 2, 2025 at 2:30 AM
proptermalone.bsky.social
how did these muscles atrophy this badly
October 8, 2024 at 3:36 AM
hausofdecline.bsky.social
Due to testicular atrophy caused by ingestion of estrogen both me and the Toronto Blue Jays now excelling at small ball
July 8, 2025 at 1:04 PM
kernelfusion.bsky.social
girl in amniotic sac for my game Atrophy
October 25, 2024 at 12:24 AM
sliceofwife.bsky.social
you need to pop your pussy so it doesn't atrophy
January 11, 2026 at 7:59 AM
moviessilently.bsky.social
This is what happens when the humanities atrophy and people get their history from 300
profpaulj.bsky.social Paul Johstono @profpaulj.bsky.social · Feb 16
And then Spartan Oliganthropia enters the chat
February 16, 2026 at 3:24 PM
acab4cutie.top
(like “maybe it’s maybelline”) testicular atrophy
April 28, 2024 at 3:56 AM
catsofyore.bsky.social
Letting your writing, thinking, artistic, and research skills atrophy into a shriveled heap of dead earthworms is definitely a good long term plan.
September 25, 2026 at 9:05 PM
sgoodyear.bsky.social
It's really something how well cars enable this civil atrophy
January 6, 2025 at 3:48 PM
caseyexplosion.bsky.social
The fallout of the AI bubble won't be just a financial one, but of mass de-skilling and atrophy
January 20, 2026 at 12:16 PM
jakeiartwork.bsky.social
Commission - Atrophy (OC)
vgen.co/jakeiartwork
January 26, 2025 at 9:39 PM
npr.org
Three patients with spinal muscular atrophy had improved muscle strength and could walk farther after a month of daily spinal stimulation.
Spinal stimulation restored muscles wasted by rare genetic disorder
Three patients with spinal muscular atrophy had improved muscle strength and could walk farther after a month of daily spinal stimulation.
www.npr.org
February 6, 2025 at 8:57 PM
alterici.bsky.social
Self-inflicted atrophy, damn.
yeetkunedo.bsky.social Yeet Kune Do @yeetkunedo.bsky.social · Jul 6
re: generative AI

I have finally fully and accurately explained my problem with how it’s marketed and used.

And now, you can use it, too.
Generative Al is being marketed as a tool designed to reduce or eliminate the need for developed, cognitive skillsets. It uses the work of others to simulate human output, except that it lacks grasp of nuance, contains grievous errors, and ultimately serves the goal of human beings being neurologically weaker due to the promise of the machine being better equipped than the humans using it would ever exert the effort to be. The people that use generative Al for art have no interest in being an artist; they simply want product to consume and forget about when the next piece of product goes by their eyes. The people that use generative Al to make music have no interest in being a musician; they simply want a machine to make them something to listen to until they get bored and want the machine to make some other disposable slop for them to pass the time with. The people that use generative Al to write things for them have no interest in writing. The people that use generative Al to find factoids have no interest in actual facts. The people that use generative Al to socialize have no interest in actual socialization. In every case, they've handed over the cognitive load of developing a necessary, creative human skillset to a machine that promises to ease the sweat equity cost of struggle. Using generative Al is like asking a machine to lift weights on your behalf and then calling yourself a bodybuilder when it's done with the reps. You build nothing in terms of muscle, you are not stronger, you are not faster, you are not in better shape. You're just deluding yourself while experiencing a slow decline due to self-inflicted atrophy.
July 6, 2025 at 9:33 PM
heatherthomasaf.bsky.social
I'm going to spend it learning something difficult every week to avoid brain atrophy and general lameness.
January 18, 2025 at 5:10 AM
joshuafoust.com
I feel like she, specifically, should know better
Artificial intelligence 66 Is AI an exoskeleton for the mind? Technology that helps people do things they couldn't otherwise achieve can also lead to atrophy Sarah O'Connor
June 30, 2026 at 10:27 AM
qbklass.bsky.social
speedrunning talented young QB atrophy
acosta32jp.bsky.social JP Acosta @acosta32jp.bsky.social · Aug 26
Let's check in on the Commanders:
August 26, 2026 at 5:08 PM
shaneajb.bsky.social
This vacuous smegmoid is an example of excessive alcohol-induced nectrotic brain atrophy.
February 13, 2025 at 10:42 PM
karenattiah.bsky.social
I think a lot about this quote from Anaïs Nin’s diary from 1939-1944:

“America is in even greater danger because of its cult of toughness, its hatred of sensitivity, and someday it may have to pay a price for this, because atrophy of feeling creates criminals”.
December 19, 2024 at 2:31 AM
brandonfriedman.bsky.social
Having too much money removes natural resistance from people's lives, literally causing their brains to atrophy
gilduran.com Gil Durán @gilduran.com · Dec 6
A Palantir billionaire just called for public hangings.

“It's time to bring back masculine leadership to protect our most vulnerable,” writes Joe Lonsdale.

This is where Silicon Valley authoritarianism is heading:

www.thenerdreich.com/joe-lonsdale...
Joe Lonsdale Calls For Public Hangings
Silicon Valley radicalization escalates
www.thenerdreich.com
December 7, 2025 at 6:17 AM