Is AI making us intellectually lazy?
#201 - Dec.2024
Think about these questions:
- When did you last solve a math problem without using your smartphone's calculator?
- When did you last drive to a place without using your GPS?
- When was the last time you went deep into a problem without heading directly to Google to find a solution?
Technology is now everywhere.
The simple challenges of our daily lives are now solved through a few clicks. We are getting used to delegating our problems without wasting our thinking energy.
And I'm not sure that's a good thing for us.
Recent studies suggest that we are less literate than one decade ago. Despite the fact that people have more access to technology and a higher education, we struggle with simple math and literacy skills.
I think this is due to our tendency to delegate our thinking skills to our latest technology.
The technology that we once envisioned as a co-pilot of our daily lives is now becoming the main pilot.
That deserves our attention.
With AI becoming mainstream we face, yet, a new chapter of our tech-driven lives. Lately, I've been thinking about how AI will affect our capacity to develop our critical thinking.
Today it is easy to default to technologies such as AI to solve problems that we used to invest time thinking about:
"Give me a summary of this document/article"
"Create a business plan for this idea"
"Write a code for a function that can do [X]"
"Write a viral article about [X]"
We can save a lot of time through AI. But are we offloading too much of our thinking to technology?
At what point do we stop learning when we fail to invest time in deeply thinking through a problem? Are we using tech to support us or to drive all our decisions?
Bridget Carey's latest review on Apple's approach to AI adoption was eye-opening for me. In her review, she points out how these tools seem to make stupid people look like geniuses. It portrays irresponsible people who use AI to hide their flaws.
Is this the real value of AI? Will AI make us dumb in the long run?
I think we deserve a better future. In this article I want to share my perspective on this and what I think we should do.
Creativity and laziness
Humans are problem-solvers. Our curiosity and creative skills are what make us unique in this world.
Our curiosity starts from questioning the world around us, finding patterns, and creating insights. In fact, pattern recognition is the most foundational piece of our expertise and knowledge.
We learn through pattern recognition.
By exposing ourselves to new contexts and situations, we accumulate knowledge that, then, we can apply to creative thinking.
It is through this accumulated knowledge that we grow as professionals and as human beings.
But we are also a "lazy" species.
Well, not lazy in the sense that we are not moved by curiosity, but we are wired to look for the path of least resistance. A low-hanging fruit looks more appealing to us. It is our brain tricking us to take shortcuts all the time.
This is precisely one of the risks I see when we use technology such as AI. This technology offers shortcuts in ways that were not possible before.
Today, a prompt is now becoming our path of least resistance for many of our daily tasks. Through AI, we can now use a simple prompt to get what we want. Or at least, get an answer that we think is right.
When these tasks relate to information, we can easily confuse AI-assisted work with true learning.
Reminds me of the "knowing vs. understanding" story from Feynman. As Feynman highlights, we can know the names of many concepts, but that has nothing to do with really understanding what those concepts are.
Understanding comes from observation and self-experimentation. You truly understand something when you deeply engage with it.
Yet, AI tools can become shortcuts to skip self-experimentations. It has the risk of giving you the false impression that you are learning, when in fact you are just relying on whatever information is telling you.
Creativity is a muscle that requires constant exercise.
We need to balance the productivity benefits of these tools with the quality of our learning that comes through engaging and experimenting. We need to keep the creative muscle active.
Speed vs. Quality
So, how we can crack the problem of efficiency vs. the quality of our work? A recent study tried to answer these questions.
A team of researchers selected nearly 800 consultants and divided them into 2 groups. One group used ChatGPT to do the work and the second group stuck to the standard way.
The group using ChatGPT had a significant improvement in performance. So far, so good. Yet, researchers also noticed something else. Consultants relied blindly on AI. They often trusted in the answers without questioning or applying judgment.
As one of the researchers said, this is the "falling asleep at the wheel" effect of AI.
AI can make us faster. But it can make us less aware of the quality of our thinking. Using Kahneman's terms, this is like being in "fast thinking" mode all the time.
Everything becomes instinctive, effortless, unconscious...and now, automated through AI.
The quality of our decisions comes from a good balance between fast and slow thinking. It is the combination of quick heuristics with deep reasoning. This is the yin-yang of problem-solving.
In a dopamine culture like today, it seems that we are becoming intimidated by slow thinking. Our attention is now volatile. We are walking our lives under the constant pressure of missing out and we can't stop to think deeply about something.
Common tasks that require attention are turning into challenges. Completing a long book. Reading a long-form article. Spending time on a craft...
We prioritize shortcuts and recurrent rewards. An AI often makes this even easier.
Is this what we want?
AI as a true co-pilot
Let me be clear. I'm not against AI. I truly believe that the combination of humans + AI will enable a creative revolution. As someone passionate about technology, I think we are living in an age of transformative changes.
I think we are heading towards a revolution where every single person has the potential to create something great. Not just by copying what already exists. But rather emulating and evolving things through our personal contributions.
A revolution where machines are not making all the decisions. A future where we combine our natural human instincts with the leverage of AI's power.
Creativity is at the center of this evolution.
So, how can we make better use of these technologies while not limiting our capacity to learn and grow? I think that we should consider a few things:
Don’t use AI blindly. The current state of AI tools, such as ChatGPT and Claude.AI are trained by public data. While you might think that all results are fact-checked, you need to work under the following principle: information can be wrong. Furthermore, these tools can hallucinate generating misleading answers. Check your assumptions and sources. Keep a high bar of quality of information and rely on trustful sources whenever possible.
Apply a Think-first principle. You should bring the hard questions. One of the best ways to put curiosity into practice is by asking good questions. Use AI tools as an exploration tool to get insights. Don’t stop at the first iteration. Make follow-up questions. Go deeper by questioning the results and finding connecting points across other domains. Use your curiosity as a driver for exploration.
Use AI as a lever to scale your creative work. Seth Godin has written more than 20 books. Yet, he used AI in his latest book. How? He used it as an editor to find gaps in his writing. He still does all the writing (the hard work), but as a staff-of-one-person, he uses AI to leverage his work of editing and refining his narrative. He's not delegating the hard work but rather augmenting his thinking to create a bigger impact. Be intentional about how you leverage AI.
Keep your creative muscle active. Many of the best creations are a result of serendipity. The art of getting lost and finding insights. Every day we have an opportunity to train our creativity. Be wise when delegating these creative moments to AI. Life is not always about efficiency. Add a pinch of humanity to your craft. There is beauty in the small imperfections.
People across generations may react differently to this new AI wave. I'm lucky to be part of a generation that witnessed the transition from an often analog life to a reality loaded with digital experiences.
But what about new generations that are digital natives? How should they envision a future world where thinking is becoming a hobby rather than a job?
Relying too much on technology has a tradeoff of becoming average. I think we should envision a future where creativity and critical thinking will become the most important force for differentiation.
Expertise will not be about knowing all possible solutions but about accumulating the knowledge to develop the taste to select the best one.
The future leaders will differentiate by their unique creative and critical thinking. They will differentiate even more if they leverage AI wisely.
¡Saludos!
p.s.: Thanks to Rosalpina Rodriguez and Antonio Maradiaga for reading early drafts version of this article.
