I read some interesting articles this week that I believe are insightful in our ongoing dance with AI.
One is a Harvard Business Review article about a study that suggests that people using AI are experiencing what the researchers call brain fry. Essentially, too much AI use pushes the brain, causing circuits to fry, which of course is an oversimplification, and I encourage you to read the article for yourself.
My Personal Experience
The truth is, I’ve experienced something similar. This was quite a while back, when AI was taking off. From the start of the day, I’d get onto Perplexity and basically stay on it the whole day. Essentially, I was engaged in cognitive offloading, where instead of thinking things through myself, I’d put problems into AI, letting the large language model do it all. It was like exporting jobs offshore, I was exporting my thinking to AI. So, I wasn’t experiencing brain fry; I was engaging in cognitive offloading. As a result, I felt like I was becoming dumb. This is my personal opinion; other people’s mileage may vary, but if people were honest, I imagine many can relate to what I am saying. I have a friend from church who said they felt dumber using AI.
The Broader Implications
Now, we have tools like agentic AI and agents working together that can supposedly do incredible things, which sounds great on paper, but in reality, engaging with multiple AI tools involves taxing our brain and lots of context switching, leading to brain fry. In the past, you might have had a process of thinking to get things done, but now, you’re constantly checking the AI’s work, improving prompts, adding more context, while juggling other tasks. You are not just offloading, you’re overloading your brain, causing your brain to fry. I’m not saying this is what happens to everyone, but I imagine that a lot of people who are heavily relying on AI, with the promise that it will make their lives better, are experiencing brain fry to some extent. It’s scary that executives push their people to use AI, thinking it will lead to increased productivity and reduced work, but reality seems to differ.
Risks for Executives
Speaking of executives, the second article is related to a study that surveyed 200 decision makers of all sorts, which found that 62 percent were offloading their decision-making to AI. Can you imagine your boss feeding AI facts and figures, relying on it for advice, and letting an LLM make critical decisions? Entrusting decisions to AI isn’t just “cognitive offloading”, it’s highly irresponsible, and potentially dangerous! Large language models cannot reason and think like humans because we consider a multitude of factors that don’t always reflect an algorithmic pattern. One could argue that AI can poorly mimic human reasoning and thinking but it is impossible for it to replicate the incredible complexity of the human mind, and I haven’t even touched on how emotions also play a part in that process, something that AI cannot even fathom. It’s false to assert otherwise, it’s a blatant lie if anyone were to tell me that AI can reason and think like humans.
A Balanced Approach
I’m not saying ignore AI entirely, basically throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Rather, I want us to be cautious, not become overly reliant, even dependent on it. After my experience, where AI became more than a tool, I’ve scaled back. I try not to throw everything at AI while doing little with my God-given abilities and talent. Instead, I labour in my thoughts, research the unknown, and synthesise it all to draw my own conclusions. Where useful, AI assists me by filling gaps. I’m not offloading everything, nor am I babysitting AI agents, frying my brain in the process.
Takeaways
Here are takeaways to consider:
- Compare pre-AI you to now: Are you fully engaged in your daily work or just prompting your AI agents for everything?
- Can you honestly say that you’re not experiencing brain fry or indulging in cognitive offloading, becoming dumber (if I am being blunt) while insisting AI has made life easier?
- If you are overly reliant on AI, experiencing brain fry and cognitive decline, are you willing to reevaluate, take ownership of your thinking and stop idolising AI?
Conclusion
If you’re a business owner or decision-maker and this post has resonated with you, and you would like to know how you can protect yourself and your staff from brain fry and cognitive decline without giving up on AI as a tool, Mustard Seed IT can help. I love helping businesses transform with tangible wisdom, by being the trusted guardian of your sustainable growth.
Book a discovery call or reach out to me on LinkedIn so we can figure out the way forward together.