Lewis: Will AI make us stupid?
The movie “WALL-E” portrayed an interesting dystopian concept that automation and robotics would advance to a point where everyone would lose their desire to exercise, eventually losing even the ability to walk. We would just ride around in “hover chairs” while machines did all the work.
While this may appear far-fetched, it is clearly plausible. My concern is that we may be facing a similar and even more grave problem — we are in the early stages of an intelligence pandemic.
The connection between health and exercise — even if most of us probably don’t exercise enough — is widely understood. If we want to be strong and fit, we need to move. What is less universally appreciated is that our brains need the same kind of stimulation to stay mentally sharp.
Throughout modern history, we’ve seen a pattern: when new tools do our work for us, our incentive to maintain that skill diminishes. Consider the calculator. Once widely introduced in schools, many educators began moving away from teaching memorization of math facts. Over time, rote calculation declined. One study found that over-reliance on calculators reduced both accuracy and understanding in students.
Or consider GPS navigation. While undeniably convenient, research shows that people who heavily rely on GPS tend to develop poorer spatial memory. Without regular practice navigating our environments — the kind of mental exercise humans have relied on for millennia — our hippocampus, a brain area involved in spatial reasoning, doesn’t get the workout it needs.
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Then there’s our shifting content consumption habits. TikTok, Instagram Reels, and other short-form platforms deliver fast dopamine hits but arguably at the cost of focus and critical thinking. Short-form rapid-fire content consumption has been linked to a measurable decrease in sustained attention span and social communication difficulties.
The worry isn’t just about attention spans — it’s about cognitive resilience. Reading long-form content, doing math by hand, and navigating without digital crutches all build the brain’s capacity to reason, solve problems, and synthesize complex information. These are exactly the kinds of skills that AI is poised to replace if we let it.
And that’s the key: if we let it. Just as we must choose to go for a run or hit the gym, we must choose to challenge our minds. AI tools like ChatGPT, Grammarly, and Google Bard can make life easier — but if we offload all our writing, planning, calculating, and problem-solving, we risk becoming the mental equivalent of the hover-chair-riders in “WALL-E.”
So will AI make us stupid? It certainly could. But it doesn’t have to. Like a treadmill, it can be a tool for growth or a symbol of unused potential. The future of human intelligence won’t be determined by machines — it will be determined by what we choose to do with them.
Mark Lewis, a Colorado native, had a long career in technology, including serving as the CEO of several tech companies. He’s now retired and writes thriller novels. Mark and his wife, Lisa, and their two Australian Shepherds — Kismet and Cowboy, reside in Edwards.
