Collective Cognitive Decline: AI Might Be Dumbing Us Down

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There is no doubt that AI interactions are also training us humans. We are learning how to prompt and prod these LLMs to create ever more human-like content. But it’s not getting better, I think it’s getting worse. Let me explain.

With the advent of mobile phone maps an entire generation of people really don’t know the way around their own city, not unlike our obliviousness to each other’s phone numbers. We simply don’t need the digits anymore, UNLESS we don’t have our phone.

So, now we’re asking AI to do our creative work for us.

“Write this cover letter.”
“Summarize the plot of Hamlet.”
“Rewrite this job description for an “ai” role.”

If AI can do all the marketing folks say it can do, humans are going to be sipping cocktails by the pool for the better part of our lives. Great! Well, wait…

You’ve seen them, the privileged Tesla drivers letting their cars do the traffic while they scroll TikToks. We’re becoming a product of our own obsessions. How would you feel about turning off your phone for several hours every day? I mean OFF, not just facedown on the table? It’s hard for us to do without our phones. Are we getting closer to the point where it’s going to be hard to do our jobs without our AI co-pilots telling us what to do next? Are we heading into the dumb human age?

Of course, I don’t think so. But I think it’s already happened with phones and leisure time and what we call entertainment. The Kardashians have led us to some really bad ideas. I don’t even need to name them all. And they are still going. Giving us awful advice, and showing what excess money does to people’s souls and surgical manipulations of our flesh. NO. NO. NO.

The same sort of thing is happening with AI. Today, for example, LinkedIn asked me if I’d like to post a job on LinkedIn for free. Sure, I said, clicking the link to add the #i’m hiring ring to my profile. Then AI wrote my job description for a ChatCPT engineer. I didn’t even have to give it the prompt. And guess what, I’ve already got 10 applicants. And it’s turned off. Because the “free job listing” was only up to 10 applicants. I could pay to boost it. No, I’m good.

So, as these assistants show up in Word, Photoshop, Search, Gmail, and every other place they can imagine adding the new magic cureall, AI. It’s already gotten out of hand. I don’t want MORE AI, I want LESS.

I want HUMAN interactions. I want people to be less robotic. I want the people at the restaurant check-in to look up and greet me as a human. Instead, I get three people staring into their screens, speaking to each other, and asking me to wait until they are through answering their computer’s questions. Here’s what’s also happening: we are over-ai-ing everything.

When we forget the humans, we begin treating people like the Kardashians treat each other. We’re slaves to our phones and televisions. I am not advocating for NO AI, but I do want you, as a human, to consider what AI is doing to your habits and processes. If you’re relying on AI to be human-like and yet you are continuing to be distracted by your Tiks and Toks, your Instagram following, your fashion influencer now giving you life coaching tips, cause she’s got a new certification. Well, you can see how we are heading to something more insidious.

We are slowly being boiled in our pot of artificial intelligence soup.

I’m here to tell you, that the fire is on, the water is boiling, and you need to shut down your electronics more often than not, take your shoes off, and walk around in your yard. Water some plants. Learn some birdsongs. Read a Walt Whitman poem. Do human things more frequently.

Remind yourself: AI is not creative or intelligent. AI is a math machine with a lot of data and a lot of stolen ideas.

John McElhenney — let’s connect online
Facebook & LinkedIn & The Whole Parent

A few of my creative ai motions: