Does AI Make Us Lazy?

Put simply, writing with AI reduces the maximum strain required from your brain. For many commentators responding to this article, this reality is self-evidently good.“The spreadsheet didn’t kill math; it built billion-dollar industries. Why should we want to keep our brains using the same resources for the same task?”

My response to this reality is split. On the one hand, I think there are contexts in which reducing the strain of writing is a clear benefit. Professional communication in email and reports comes to mind. The writing here is subservient to the larger goal of communicating useful information, so if there’s an easier way to accomplish this goal, then why not use it? 

But in the context of academia, cognitive offloading no longer seems so benign. In a learning environment, the feeling of strain is often a by-product of getting smarter. To minimize this strain is like using an electric scooter to make the marches easier in military boot camp; it will accomplish this goal in the short term, but it defeats the long-term conditioning purposes of the marches.

I wrote many a journal entry in college complaining about this exact point, except we were still arguing about graphing calculator and laptop use.

Now that I’m older, I understand the split that Cal talks about here.

When I’m writing software to accomplish a task for work, then it’s more important for me to spend my brain energy on building the context of the problem in my head.

When I’m writing an essay and trying to prove that I understand a concept, then it’s more important for me to get the words out of my head and onto paper. Then, I can use tools to help me clean it up later.

Maybe this points to a larger problem I’ve had with our education system. Imagine a spectrum of the intent of college. The left end of the spectrum represents “learning how to critically think about ideas”. The right end represents “learning skills that will help you survive in the real world”.

When someone makes fun of a film studies major, it’s because their evaluation of the spectrum is closer to the right end.

When someone makes fun of students using ChatGPT for writing their essays for them, it’s because their evaluation is closer to the left.