HackiNews

Who Is Responsible for Tackling Professional Deskilling? (www.degruyterbrill.com)

18 points | by geox | 7 Comments

• kian
  The professionals who are deskilling themselves, obviously.

  • joshAg
    > According to the empirical literature on deskilling, automation bias, and skill decay, many professionals rely on artificial intelligence much more than is necessary when it is available, and the effects of such overreliance on skill decay are unlikely to be entirely understood by the professionals themselves. I argue that this – what I call the insidious nature of deskilling – supports a normative view, according to which the responsibility for tackling deskilling should not be ascribed to the individual professional but the risks of professional deskilling should be tackled by the professional community instead. Mitigating the risks of deskilling should start from an intra-field analysis of the core skills of the profession that should not be outsourced to artificial intelligence. Then, the individual professional would not be left alone to determine how and when to prevent deskilling during the adoption of artificial intelligence within her profession.

    • kian
      Yes, I read the article, although I appreciate your manner of suggesting i haven't over what it could have been. And again - the responsibility for making poor choices and over-reliance on AI lies with the individual, regardless of what the article says. This is like saying that responsibility for being able to do mental math should be tackled by the professional community because calculators exist, or that the professional chef community needs to get involved to prevent a devolution of skills due to this new-fangled micro-wave oven.

      • joshAg
        It didn't seem like it, because section 2 directly discusses the issue you raised and why individuals aren't in a position to adequately prevent deskilling on by themselves. OK, you disagree with it, but you don't even engage with the actual argument it makes.

        • kian
          Just because individuals may not be fully aware of the consequences of their actions does not make them suddenly not responsible for them. See for example not studying well in college, eating poorly, not exercising, walking around barefoot in hookworm country, leaving food out while camping in bear country, and swimming without underwear in candiru-infested rivers.

          • snayan
            While this may be the prevailing POV in the present, it certainly wasn't always this way. Expressive individualism is an anomaly in the grand scheme of human history.

            • kian
              Many things that we treasure are anomalies in the grand scheme of human history. Treating other races as human beings, valuing life and human potential, believing that everyone including women should be educated... How's that appeal to historical authority apply in those cases? Perhaps you're also a monarchist? In which case, my bad, at least you're consistent :)