e501 — Dumb Users, Smart AI | Games At Work dot Biz

sticker reading “Smart Phones | Dumb People!” on an electrical cabinet in the foreground of a street scene — Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Published 17 February 2025

e501 with Michael R and Andy – all about outsourcing intelligence to #AI, protecting your #data after #death, #AR #glasses, #Diablo & #Civ game ports, #backdoors and more!

So many articles these days have a headline such as “what happens to your body when you <fill in the blank>”. Michael R and Andy start off the episode exploring what happens when you outsource some, or too much, of your cognitive energy to an AI.

Then, the team turns to a discussion on a hardware + software solution for protecting your data when you shuffle off the mortal coil and join the choir invisible. Check out the In Case of Death Case, replete with the pulse detecting In Case of Death Smart Ring and associated software. Next, some speculation on what the team in Cupertino is doing with glasses-based AR. Then, a story from the UK on the mandate to provide a backdoor for end-to-end encrypted data for Apple and other companies.

On a lighter note, Michael and Andy discuss how to run Diablo 1 on a variety of hardware and software. And speaking of ports, Civilization VII will be made available on Meta’s Quest later this spring.

The team then wraps things up with The Wheel of Time.

What steps have you taken to protect your data? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!

Selected Links

AI

A new paper from researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University finds that as humans increasingly rely on generative AI in their work, they use less critical thinking, which can “result in the deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved.”
https://www.404media.co/microsoft-study-finds-ai-makes-human-cognition-atrophied-and-unprepared-3/

— Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog) 2025-02-10T16:02:56.509Z

404 Media article: Microsoft Study Finds AI Makes Human Cognition “Atrophied and Unprepared”

New Scientist article: Using AI tools like ChatGPT can reduce critical thinking skills

Boy Genius Report article: We just started using AI like ChatGPT, and it may already be making us dumber

Microsoft Research article: The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking: Self-Reported Reductions in Cognitive Effort and Confidence Effects From a Survey of Knowledge Workers