The "calculator ruined the world" argument was actually studied to death once the panic subsided. Large meta-analyses of 50 years of data show it was mostly a non-problem. Students using calculators generally developed better attitudes toward math and attempted more complex problems because the mechanical drudgery was gone.
The only real "catch" researchers found was timing. If you introduce them before a kid has "automaticity" (around 4th grade), they never develop a baseline number sense, which makes high-level math harder later on.
It's a pretty clean parallel for LLMs. The tool isn't the problem, but using it to bypass the "becoming" phase of a skill usually backfires. If you use an LLM before you know how to structure an argument or a block of code, you're just building on sand.
You're using the motte-and-bailey fallacy. Pocket and scientific calculators have never caused anywhere near as much grief as current LLMs do as a loss-leader for near-trillion dollar corporations that are primarily responsible for artificially keeping the US economy afloat (at least prior to the latest war/not-war effort).
The only real "catch" researchers found was timing. If you introduce them before a kid has "automaticity" (around 4th grade), they never develop a baseline number sense, which makes high-level math harder later on.
It's a pretty clean parallel for LLMs. The tool isn't the problem, but using it to bypass the "becoming" phase of a skill usually backfires. If you use an LLM before you know how to structure an argument or a block of code, you're just building on sand.