How to use AI and not lose your skills

My thoughts on skill atrophy and the grand scheme of things

19 May 2025 • 5 min read

I'm part of the privileged generation of people that grew up with the Internet. Something I'm very familiar with is being able to utilize the vast resource and value available to me so that I can troubleshoot, diagnose, and learn things previously undreamt of. It's truly an indispensable tool that assists me in everything that I do.

I think one of the best things that the Internet has done for us is to encourage us to seek help when we have difficulty with problems and challenges. Due to the sheer simplicity of it, like searching the web or browsing a forum, we have gotten used to being able to ask for help and to have vast resources ready at our disposal whenever we need it the most.

But sometimes it's not really enough. Not everybody has the same issue as you. People do things differently and everybody tackles things in their own way. Finding a common ground that is understandable to you and not just you can be tricky.

Which is why I think people started working on LLMs, and subsequently AI (which we are yet to really get the hang of) and it really does make a lot of sense. AI helps us analyze data far better than we previously could, and it helps us come up with better predictions. An all-knowing, universally helpful tool that can answer anything you throw at it, in a hyper-personalized manner that is understandable not just to you, but to everyone else? Sounds perfect, right?

The eternal challenge of humanity has always been to surpass our own cognitive and physical limitations and address issues that surpass our capabilities to resolve them. We always strive for something greater than us. AI in it's current form negates our own fleshy limitations by offering us answers and solutions to anything we could muster up the confidence to ask it. It's a very human conclusion to a problem that exceeds humanity.

But it comes at a cost; basic skills that we take for granted slowly wither away as we get used to the comfort of having everything at our disposal almost instantly. Certain repetitive tasks that we no longer have to spend time doing start to disappear from our daily palette of frustration, hours of trial and error that we no longer have to endure are brushed aside by a prompt or two, and in some more deeply concerning and troubling cases – issues that require us to do critical thinking and complex problem solving become trivial.

Dmitry Mazin, in his 2023 blog post, spoke about his navigation skills atrophying due to the sheer simplicity that Google Maps offers drivers. This was a really interesting case for me, as it provides a great foundation for understanding the trade off that AI and similar automation tools offer us. In exchange for accessibility and enhanced utility, we let go of our most critical skills, and then bam... We're no longer in control of our fate and we have been totally and utterly replaced by agents.

...But this is just an exaggeration. Sure, AI is definitely helpful to negate a lot of the frustration of repetitive tasks, but it doesn't replace our own critical thinking and problem solving skills. Dan Mall lays out the process of how AI would take over the world in his blog post; how it first forces us to become dependent on it, integrates with everything we use, influences our decision making and ultimately makes us compliant. Just as he mentions in his own article, this is less of a horror story and more of a blueprint on what value one can extract from tools like AI – and it is a tool, just like a wrench or a screwdriver or even a multimeter.

Tools have functionality. They assist you in doing certain tasks. In no way do they replace what you do – just like how in the case of Dmitry, Google Maps assists him in navigating the roads that he drives on. After all, he is still behind the wheel, and even though he feels that his navigation skills have atrophied, he'll be pleasantly surprised at how many obscure roads he probably has memorized from the time he's spent driving.

Humans are curious and always learning. Utilizing tools is one part of the experience. Critical thinking, problem solving skills and big-picture thinking is something that no tool can ever replace, as it's inherently a human process that takes all those hours of endless trial and error, as well as those menial repetitive tasks that we are trying so hard to automate. AI, as it exists right now, is a fantastic tool for quenching our thirst for learning, and I'm sure that in the distant future (when we eventually get AGI figured out) It'll prove to be an even better and more helpful assistant.

For the sake of argument, this article was written without the use of AI. It's a collection of thoughts from my brain, beamed directly to yours. Let's keep utilizing the wonderful tools at our disposal to make great things even better. As Jony Ive said, let's make things for each other.

Sources cited include Dmitry Mazin's wonderful blog over at cyberdemon.org, as well as Dan Mall's fantastic newsletter at danmall.com, both of which I highly recommend reading.