The Unthinking Human
The world is no longer silent. It is full of answers … generated, curated, and delivered by intelligent systems. In this flood of instant explanations, there is less and less room for absurdity. We no longer face emptiness; we scroll past it. Confrontation dissolves into an algorithmically optimized response.
A recent study published in Societies (2025)* found a significant negative correlation between frequent use of AI tools and critical thinking skills, with cognitive load acting as a mediating factor. This phenomenon, in which individuals delegate mental tasks to machines, may free up cognitive resources. Still, it also carries the risk of losing the very skills we once celebrated as uniquely human: reflection, judgment, discernment. The more we rely on AI to think for us, the less we may know how to think at all.
When we stop wrestling with meaning, we are no longer thinkers. We become algorithms that stop questioning critically.
This is not a Luddite tirade. AI can improve, enhance, and enlighten. But if we are not careful, it can also lead us to intellectual atrophy. The problem isn’t that machines are starting to resemble humans, but that humans are beginning to resemble machines … efficient, task-focused, and unreflective.
“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
But would Sisyphus still be happy if a machine carried his boulder?
What dignity remains when the struggle is outsourced?
Perhaps the future of thinking lies not in acceleration, but in resistance. In creating spaces for slowness, ambiguity, and silence.
*Gerlich, M. (2024). AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking. Societies, 15(1), 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15010006
This might be of interest:
You can read an excerpt from the book “Critical Thinking is Your Superpower” here:
