I would say it goes down. After all the slop users are not going to suddenly discover critical thinking.

Net negative, I'd say, especially in the long run.

By training LLMs, you're neglecting to train the entry level workers who grow to be seniors. If we keep going down this rabbit hole, there will be no one who knows 'the old ways' and understand why we do things a certain way.

Additionally, the energy consumption and land occupation is massive and far outweighs the benefits, making things more scarce, especially since more people will lose their jobs.

For the tiny % of people who actually put it to good use, there's 100x more abusing or mishandling it.

It depends on if quality is a product of productivity.

depends what you mean by productivity. cost based efficiencty has risen but at the expense of future capacity. We are kinda taking long term into account sometimes but very often even that is thrown off in the short term. Like organic and regenerative farming have been increasing as well as this thing called precision but im not sure that leaves the soil as good or better than it started it just sorta tech farming. Its a small minority that does any of that and if they seel the land the next owner may do the common farm technique that erodes the land so there is no way to know how long term it will be. granted everything im talking about does not even necessarily use ai.