ok but i actually don't believe LLMs make you stupid

since most people i see who use them for $THING sucked at $THING to begin with and never got any better over the years / have explicitly indicated that they have exhausted their options and available energy/time for any hope of getting better

they do help spread the stupid and make it harder to remove though, whether as a matter of how they make convincing-sounding bullshit or the way the worst people in our society keep forcing it on everything

It's a case of tools changing the user. If you actually outsource your critical thinking or information gathering (or anything else) to a LLM, you will get worse at that task yourself. It's a matter of whether you replace that lost skill with a better new skill or not, if you don't then yes, it makes you stupider.