In 1971, physicist Lew Kowarski already asked: are we using computers as a substitute for thinking?
jjvincent · x · 2026-09-28
Writing in 1971, French nuclear physicist Lew Kowarski reflected on how computers had transformed his profession and raised "the ultimate worry: are we not going to use computers as a substitute for thinking?" His half-century-old question strikingly mirrors today's debates over whether LLMs erode deep thinking, offering a historical lens on cognitive dependence in the AI era.
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