Will AI Make Us Think Less (or Dumber)?

I don’t know about you, but I use AI to assist with a lot of daily tasks, mainly because it saves me time. At times, it feels like having a personal assistant. Whether it's looking up recipes, helping draft emails, summarizing long webpages, or more, AI enables me to accomplish more in a day than I could without it. The trade-off? Efficiency at the expense of using less of my brain.

Looking toward the future, AI is only going to get more advanced and integrated into even more areas of our lives. For those of us who rely on it, not just for quick dinner recipes, but for tasks that typically require more mental effort, AI can instantly deliver answers that used to take time and effort to research. In some cases, AI provides clear yes-or-no answers, or straightforward facts. But what about the more complex, gray areas? These are the kinds of questions that used to require thoughtful research, critical thinking, and personal judgment to find the most fitting answers.

As much as I love using AI every day, I do wonder about the long-term effects. How advanced will AI become? Will it reach a point where we no longer need to think or solve problems for ourselves? Will that make us, as a society, mentally lazier, or in simpler terms, dumber?