Slow down. Think whole thoughts.

Fast food makes us fat, whole foods make us healthy. So too do whole thoughts. With assistive-AI everywhere you must slow down and think your own, whole thoughts.

Dec 19, 2023

The debate about whether or not to embrace AI is a complex one – it’s too much for this article. Today, I just want to focus on one aspect of AI: assistive AI.

You probably don’t think you use it – but it’s not new, its everywhere and it’s slowly making your brain and mine fat, slow and unhealthy.

Today is not a big, deep article. Today I just want to point out a few places that AI is already “helping” you in the short-term… and why, in the long-term, you might prefer to avoid it just a touch.

What is Assistive-AI?

When I talk about assistive AI, I’m talking about all those little tools you find on your screen that have appeared over the past few years to help you do things faster, more easily and with fewer mistakes. The common examples are:

Predictive Keyboards
In various forms on Android or iOS, usually atop your keyboard - those choices of words the device thinks you’re about to write before you finish typing.
Predictive Writing
Becoming popular in email, notes and document apps, predictive writing goes a step further and offers the next word or two — perhaps even the whole sentence.
Maps & Directions
Yes. We all use them all the time. Google & Apple Maps can help you get where you’re going faster and plan your arrival time more accurately.
Search, Ads & Social
Just for completeness, it’s worth talking about the platforms we use the most … where AI has been deployed the longest, to help you to their goal the fastest.

What’s the problem?

The problem has to do with the way your brain conditions itself to be more efficient.

Every time you have a thought you tread a specific path through the vast open meadow of your brain. The more you think the same things, the more you retrace your steps and more well-trodden the path becomes.

You - everything about you: your knowledge, memories, ideas and thoughts - are made of the pathways you’ve worn through the meadow over the years.

And when you sleep, just like a summer rain, your body washes your brain through and on the old paths you no-longer tread, new grass grows until the path has all but vanished.

So while, in the moment, assistive AI helps you get the job done faster or more accurately… it also stops you treading some critical pathways, pathways that form part of spine complex networks of thought which then risk falling into disuse.

Every time you rely on assistive text or Google Maps or even search & social algorithms just a little … a whole cluster of pathways in your brain grow fainter until eventually some of them disappear altogether — along with all the other skills that used that route.

Is this real?

Yes. Or at least, I would cite two things to convince you that it is:

It fits with our understanding of how the brain works (both physiologically and psychologically) that we enforce pathways over time and that those pathways continue to evolve our whole lives: affected by our environment and conditioning. So that is to say: it stands to reason that it would be true.
The effects of two specific classes of assistive have been studied and both studies showed the same results. One study, in 2020, showed that habitual use of GPS negatively impacts spatial memory … while the second1, also 2020, showed that predictive text caused writing to become “more concise and less interesting”. So that is to say: it stands to scrutiny that it is, indeed, true.

Should I care?

Yes. If you care about your physical health then you should care about your mental health just as much.

We all know that eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly keeps out bodies healthy and if we don’t then we get fat and lose muscle respectively.

The same is true about our mental health. It is important to consume a healthy diet balanced diet of news, media, entertainment and maintain a balanced variety of relationships — but it is also, critically important that we continue to exercise our brains.

These assistive tools may seem helpful in the moment but they are the mental equivalent of a sedentary lifestyle and driving from A to B. We must become more cognisant of the need to mentally exercise ourselves lest our brains become less fit.

It’s easy to do. Just turn these things off.

Predictive Text
You can turn this off in Settings. Type without an AI second-guessing literally the most predictable word. Regain you voice, your intonation and your own unique style.
Predictive Writing
Definitely turn this off. No-one you’re corresponding with wants to correspond with an AI anyway but moreover, by writing inauthentic prose and sending it out as your own you are also, physiologically, undermining your own authenticity.
Maps
I understand, this is harder… because we’re always running late and no-one’s seen a paper map for years. At the very least, use it less. Don’t have it on by default, take a moment to try to plan your journey in head before relying on it and, if can do so safely, hide the map, switch off your phone or close the screen in your car until you’re really lost. If you never have to figure out where you are - you’ll never know where you’re going.
Search, Ads & Social
I’ve talked mostly about text & maps but I believe the same is true for search, ads and social. These are all assistive-AI and relatively mature. They learn your habits, your interactions and they exploit this knowledge for their own ends. At the very least learn to be cognisant of how much you allow tech to lead your buying decisions or with whom you interact online; and for your own sake, if you’ve not already, get off Facebook and Instagram - it is not a reflection of anyone’s reality: especially yours.