Technology taking over cognition?
Outsourcing is a common practice in manufacturing. Thousands of industries have been outsourcing production of their goods to Asian and Latin American countries since 1960/70s. The main reason is low production cost due to cheap labour & easy access to raw materials, which gives them an enormous profit margin. Away from outsourcing in businesses in recent decades people in general seem to be subliminally outsourcing their cognitive function, first of which started with the commercialisation of pocket calculators in 1970 with the release of Sharp-EL-78. The first scientific calculator HP-35, released in 1972 made even complicated mathematical/statistical calculations easy for everyone; all one has to do is enter numeric values to the variables in the formula. People no longer have to think about doing any calculations. Yes, it makes our life easy, but in the process, we are conceding the process of learning by ignoring the logical steps simply by focusing on the result.In recent years, unbeknownst to most, we are faced with a stark reality that is challenging our thinking faculty, which has distinguished Homo sapiens from the rest of the animal species. The challenge is posed by the AI. Global metamorphosis of internet technology (IT) to artificial intelligence (AI) is impacting everything surrounding us, in business, finance, environment, human behaviour & relations and how we think and act.
Discoveries & innovations doesn’t always mean progress; it simply means change which could be positive & negative as in the case of uranium, dynamite, etc. Indeed, the application of AI has improved efficiencies across the board but in the process, we have sacrificed our autonomy, the full impact of which is unknown. It seems fun to ask questions to Chatbots or submit a problem - visual, seeking an answer and get instant response but we are seriously undermining our own critical thinking ability as we do not need to read, think & analyse to conclude what we want to say or do. We are provided with instant answers by Chatbots like GPT, Gemini, Gork, Jasper, Notion, etc.
Human are a rational & relational being
Our rationality & relationships acquired through information literacy make us achieve academic success, shape our professionalism and above all, make us an informed global citizen. But we are unintentionally delegating our rational thinking - cognitive function to Chatbots which has no social values & ethics. We are consciously diminishing the value of information literacy by avoiding to identify, locate, evaluate, and use information appropriately - by simply relying on AI. The proponents of AI see it as a great innovation; indeed, it is, but its application has potentials to cause innumerable harm, especially to children by interfering their natural cognitive development path; it amounts to deliberately disabling their thinking function. What will be the long-term impact of underutilisation of cognition faculty by children? Based on biological theory of evolution could the brain of future generations become lazy for underutilization?Chatbots can help children learn by asking any questions without fear or inhibition. A child can have back and forth conversation with Chatbots and get information. A child can also learn a new language with AI assistance. It is like having a dialogue with a friend. But it is not the same as reading books with different points of analytical views for one to get in depth. Chatbots also always tend to have positive reinforcement of the person asking the question where your views become the only view - confirmation bias, lacking depth. Reliance on Chatbots is like delegating your reading and problem-solving tasks where you do not have to think for yourself. Children can get academic support but it threatens cognitive atrophy impacting their learning & reasoning ability and emotional resilience. It suppresses or bypasses the struggle necessary to build a strong neural pathway. It is likely that children relying on Chatbots will have difficulties in having the same dialogue or conversation with a physical human being.
Morally wicked
Application of AI in business and industries is one thing but AI hacking the basics of human intelligence is quite different. AI is redirecting human’s natural way of processing information, understanding and making decisions to a path directed by Chatbots. It is happening at the population level, not just at the individual level which is morally culpable. All social media platforms are flooded with massive amounts of AI generated lifelike video clips that can hook up children and teens for endless hours. The worst thus far is Meta which pops up everywhere with suggestions; even if you do not have Facebook installed it allows you to open the link which is a step closer to hook you up. For other social media you can’t open a link if you have not installed the programme. It sure will degenerate children’s natural social and psychological environment. Meanwhile the creators of the videos and social media platforms capitalise on endless scrolling and chasing habits on intentionally meaningless and absurd media for profit through targeted advertisements.We cannot deny many positive benefits of Chatbots such as learning language but there are many more aggressive sides of Chatbots. For example, you can edit pictures and videos. All you have to do is submit a picture or a video and tell what you want. The job is done but we are not learning anything because we are not doing it. In recent months there is a surge in highly repetitive AI generated videos targeting children and teens. Many of these visual materials also include war games, and various forms of violence. These overstimulating visuals promoted in hollow media push children and teens to chase non-existing worlds. These can contribute to significant cognitive decline and violent tendencies among children, termed as ‘brain rot’. According to psychologists, children 3-6 years exposed to long term use of AI generated visuals on mobile devices develop unilateral attachments and blind trust on personalities in the visuals, confusing relationships with real human beings. AI chatbots have become a noiseless dialect universally understood and accepted - good for the producers and bad for the consumers.
The end result is that people are becoming poorer in their thinking skills while enriching the AI operatives with people’s personal data and giving opportunities to further refine AI models making the users even more addictive. People have accepted every new technology that comes into the market and benefited from it. But this time around we may be losing more than benefiting from it.
Development and application of AI can be regulated. But the government bureaucracy's speed of work is against the tide of AI development. It took ten full years to agree on USB C as the standard USB cable, now imagine how long it could take to regulate AI. The US government has actually decided not to put any restrictions for the next ten years. Since the USA is the bastion of technical innovation, regulating AI development is simply far-fetched worldwide. Finally, it is up to the AI developers, social media platforms and content creators and the users to decide what should and should be done.
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Ramesh, you raise important concerns. But you present only one side. The other side may become the most beneficial revolution in human history.
ReplyDeleteHuman progress has always involved “outsourcing”. Writing outsourced memory. Calculators outsourced arithmetic. Machines outsourced physical strength. None of these did away with human intelligence.
We do not become intellectually stronger by spending hours on repetitive tasks. The question should be what we do with the time saved. It could give us more time for family, friendship, creativity and travel. Jobs need not disappear but could just change.
The possibilities are enormous. Every child could have a tutor. Every doctor could have access to all medical knowledge. Researchers could develop medicines in months rather than years. AI could raise agricultural production. It may become a powerful weapon against climate change. It could help poorer countries leapfrog decades of development. Rather than increasing inequality, AI could democratise knowledge.
We should distinguish AI from social media. Endless scrolling, targeted advertising and addictive content existed before AI. These are problems of commercial incentives and weak regulation. They are not proof that artificial intelligence is bad. We should regulate harmful uses, not kill the technology. The answer to the danger of cars was driving rules, safer roads and seat belts. It was not a return to horses.
AI will undoubtedly change how we live and work. Used wisely, it could create a cleaner, richer and more interesting world.
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ReplyDeletere-posting as I had some typing errors: great topic - I would not exempt us elderly from the allure of AI as it can be as dark as impact on children. My social media with many of my "senior" friends is often fraught with AI generated photos, AI written articles and AI videos that seem to capture elder minds as much as they do children - even swaying elder peoples perception of reality or perception of nostalgia. Every tool I use has a an AI tool ready to "help" - to write the e-mail response for you, take care of your next WHATSAPP MESSAGE, summariese the last set of e-mails you just got. It is pretty crazy and not unique to impacting children - of course impacted children then lead long lives where the impact plays out on every aspect of their lives - as our future authors, heads of state, doctors or lawyers - is AI making them better people and can we see the impact 20 years down the line. It is a very tricky landscape. And what Thomas said about what we do with the time we saved - that is the core question of questions - which goes way back to the first time a task was outsourced - like having a beast of burden carry your firewood or water. Using the time saved wisely is the key. In my last year of UNICEF we had corporate AI tools in the Microsoft suite we used. It was a wonderful tool. My Rep could ask me for a 3 slides powerpoint summary of all of our country office interaction with donor X in the past 5 years and it saved me HOURS of time. The AI tool had access to our shared files, my official e-mails and the intranet of UNICEF - to compile that stuff. It was pretty amazing. The same AI tool helped us complete our input for the UNICEF annual report to HQ, to pull together donor reports and for such presentation for donors - all tedious tasks made easier by this tool. As head of planning, monitoring and reporting - having a tool that made the compilation of drafts - meant we saved time serving the beast - and my team with extra time could focus more effort working with our partners and staff and crafting more results based workplans, doing more meaningful field visits, monitoring results and doing a better job to have that info available for programming decisions and for future reporting. It was a huge time saver.
ReplyDeleteUNICEF even had a an AI BOT that helped you navigate queries on AI - there was a bot specific for staff going through the separation process, during the budget cuts in 2025, so we could navigate and find the relevant HR policies and directives. I no longer had to take the life up 3 floors, stand with my hat in my hand at a HR officer's desk and ask about some niche or new HR policy - and then the HR officer would have to do a massive search to find it and get back to me - if they did not have 10 recruitment panels to attend, interview minutes to review, or process of entitlements for newly arrived or separating staff. The tool made out life easier.
ReplyDeletecorrection; the AI bot helped us navigate queries on HR (not queries on AI) related to separation entitlements. In a time of stress it lowered our stress and that of our HR colleagues who had their hands full.
DeleteIt's really crazy how invasive AI is. When I try to send an email, it actually suggests to whom I should send it and then provides a text. If I forget to change the language, it "corrects" several words which can be quite funny, but obviously not good.
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