For avoidance of doubt I think it clearly is a bad thing. But this is more often assumed than it is stated. After all I’m dependent on Google Maps to navigate, my glasses to see and my phone to remember numbers. These are different forms of technological dependence which I’ve long made my peace with. Whereas the extent to which I use LLMs, even within the limits I’ve defined as responsible use I’m ethically comfortable with, continues to trouble me. A great deal about the politics of LLMs in education hinges on this question of dependence. What are some reasons why dependence might be a bad thing?
- It prevents a user from developing a capability they would otherwise develop.
- It leads to the atrophy of a user’s existing skill by removing occasions for practice.
- It leaves a user dependent on a paid subscription to a large tech firm which is uncomfortable in itself.
- It leaves a user vulnerable to this tech firm raising prices and/or enshittfying their product in response to commercial pressures.
- It removes the imperative for the user to seek out human interlocutors to play the role which the LLM is playing in what is essentially communicative reflexivity.
Once we map out the varied reasons for dependence being problematic, it’s easier to recognise that user-model interaction can be beneficial in the present tense while also storing up significant problems for the future. The relationship of dependence might not be a problem now but there’s a non-trivial chance it will be in the future. The harms are anticipated as much as they are actual and AI criticism looks very different once we allow for that.
(The next book Milan Sturmer and I are writing, sequel to the Platform Learns to Speak, argues there are deeper psychic costs which existing models of dependence cannot adequately account for. But this is a different register of analysis for a different blog post)
Mark Carrigan 