I remember being able to sit down and write a five-paragraph argumentative essay in under an hour. I was able to score A's on all my persuasive and argumentative essays (humble brag). Just a pencil and a piece of paper. I didn't have access to grammar tools, never mind LLM prompts. There was no assistance. It was just thought, structure, and execution.
Somewhere along the way, that ability dulled.
I didn't lose intelligence. I outsourced friction.
I chose convenience over resistance more often than I realized.
Anyone as intrigued by technical advancement as I am probably uses generative AI every day. There are many use cases for GenAI, of course, but just from the technical side, it does the following for me:
So, don't get me wrong. I'm not anti-AI. I build with it all the time.
But I've noticed something that makes me a bit uncomfortable. As I rely on it to structure my thinking, I skip the cognitive reps. What happens if we stop doing the hard parts ourselves?
This isn't just intuition. In 2011, cognitive psychologist Betsy Sparrow and her colleagues showed something interesting.1 When people expect information to be stored externally and easily retrievable, they're less likely to remember it themselves.
And why would we need to? Our brains and bodies are incredibly resourceful. The brain literally optimizes for efficiency. If it doesn't need to build a pathway for remembering information, then it won't.
I remind myself that writing is structured thinking. It forces clarity, and it exposes gaps in reasoning. It strengthens argumentation and communication.
AI removes friction, and friction is what builds cognition. That's the trade-off.
Life is a series of trade-offs. This is one that concerns me. AI itself is not the danger here. Dependency is.
It's completely reasonable to use AI as a grammar coach, a clarity editor, or just a second set of eyes.
But the ideas must originate from us humans.
We have to remember generative models are trained on existing data. They recombine patterns from the past. Innovation, however, requires new synthesis. If we increasingly outsource the act of forming and articulating ideas, we risk weakening the very mechanism that produces progress in our society.
Effective communication is not optional. It is leverage everywhere in our lives… whether in engineering, leadership, relationships, entrepreneurship, etc.
If we stop practicing effective communication, the skill decays.
It's a dilemma we have to face head-on. AI is stellar at writing on its own.2 But I wrote this because I don't want to lose the ability to think independently and express original ideas.
LLMs will continue to improve. We can't fight that. So we should too, alongside it.
Keep writing and keep thinking.
Don't outsource your mind.
Keshav
I'd value your feedback.