Every time a new technology comes along, someone panics that it’s going to make us all a bit… well, less sharp. And AI is no exception. Will we lose our ability to think critically? Will our problem-solving skills weaken? Will we become mindless drones, relying on chatbots to do all our thinking for us?
Let’s take a step back. Because this isn’t the first time humanity has had a collective meltdown over a new invention. And spoiler: we’re still here, functioning just fine (mostly).
Socrates, a big fan of deep thinking, not a fan of writing. He believed that writing things down would make people forgetful because they wouldn’t need to remember things anymore. Fast forward to today, and writing is… well, kind of essential to civilisation.
When Gutenberg rolled out the printing press in the 15th century, people feared it would overload minds with too much information. The Church worried that common folk reading books would lead to dangerous independent thinking. Turns out, that was kind of the point.
Remember when maths teachers warned us that relying on calculators would rot our brains? Now, we use them all the time, and somehow, scientists still manage to send rockets into space.
TV was supposed to turn us into couch potatoes, and the internet was supposed to fry our attention spans. While we do have a TikTok problem, both have also given us access to incredible amounts of knowledge, creativity, and (admittedly) a lot of cat videos.
It depends. If we let AI do all the thinking for us, accepting its outputs without question, then yes, we might lose some of our critical thinking skills. But if we use AI as a tool to enhance our thinking, we could actually become smarter.
Think of AI like a satnav. It helps you find the fastest route, but if you never pay attention, you might not learn your way around. Use it wisely, though, and it saves time while still allowing you to develop your own sense of direction.
AI won’t make us stupid—unless we let it. Like every major invention before it, AI is a tool. And how we use it will determine whether it makes us sharper, more creative, and more efficient, or just passive consumers of information.
So, next time someone says, “AI is going to make us all stupid,” just remind them that people once thought the same about books. And here we are, still thinking (and still Googling things we should probably already know).
AI won’t replace us at work by default, only if we don’t learn how to use it. Those who embrace AI as a tool will find themselves working smarter, not being replaced. The choice is ours.