The invention of the torque wrench didn’t severely impede my ability to retrieve stored information, and everyone else’s, affecting me by proxy.

The tech four years ago was impressive but for me it’s only done two things since becoming widely available: thinned the soup of Internet fun things, and made some pellets disproportionally executives at my work, abandon a solid third of their critical thinking skills.

I use AI models locally, to turn around little jokes for friends, you could say I’ve put more effort into machine learning tools than many daily AI users. And I’ll be the first to call the article described by OP as a true, shameful indictment of us as a species.