Beyond Easy Answers
Did we abandon calculators because they reduced mental arithmetic? No. We learned when to use them and when to think without them. Did we stop writing things down because it reduced memory effort? No. We learned what to remember and what to record. Did we stop using spell check because it corrected our mistakes? No. We learned to write better while still paying attention to language. Did we stop using autopilot because it reduced manual control? No. We learned when to trust automation and when to take control. It feels like we have a pattern and also we don’t.
There is much to learn from the past but it is not clear on what to learn at. It feels like we ended up having more confusions than finding answers. Is it a progress? BIG yes. Did it happen every time when there was a paradigm shifting technology takeover? Maybe. But for now, we are all figuring it out. We all have our own theories. We have our own interpretations and inferences. Based on the usage we have developed our own mental models as well.
When mobile phones became common, people worried they would reduce face-to-face conversations and increase distraction. When television spread widely, concerns grew that it would reduce reading habits and critical thinking. When social media platforms became popular, people warned about addiction and shallow interactions. When the internet first emerged, many worried it would spread misinformation, reduce deep thinking, and weaken real-world social interactions. All our worries and concerns have occurred at varying scales and will continue to. Same applies to AI as well.
Keeping all that aside, the point of discussion has to be on how we can use AI for deeper thinking and long-term learning. Yes, it reduces effort by instantly generating answers, explanations, and solutions. There is, of course, a gap created here. While we rely on AI and offload our cognitive effort to it, can it instead become a cognitive amplifier that creates space for deeper thinking? Is AI a cognitive scaffold instead? Can we design interactions where thinking remains central? Can AI design different kinds of tasks based on the need, and guide each individual along their own path? Yes, capable and already doing, just like it happened with every other invention.
What we are calling today confusion is not coming from the tool. It is coming from the person who is interacting with it. Every new invention is first accused, then feared, and finally absorbed. Every new invention has changed the human nature and also revealed aspects of our thought process. Every time when something changes, we think the change is the problem. But often, it is just exposing how we were already thinking. The confusion, the dependency, the shortcut and as we name and label it, they were always there. Now they are more visible. So maybe AI is not changing thinking as much as it is forcing us to notice it. And then, like always, we slowly learn how to live with it. And of course make a better life with it.