The End of Thinking

A society that can't think, outpaced by machines that don't take sick days and can work 24/7. And this population, easily swayed by rhetoric, will champion these machines as saviors.

Photo by Juan Rumimpunu on Unsplash

One of the reasons I write is to filter, clarify, and organize my thoughts. It's one thing to spew some nonsensical soundbite. It's another to put thoughts on paper, with permanence, for everyone to analyze and re-analyze. Each word selected carefully, so as not to convey the wrong message - a mistake I've made many times in the past.

While others might gain a new perspective or learn something from my writing, I equally benefit by defragmenting the chaos in my brain.

Similarly, reading goes beyond looking at symbols on a page. It provokes thinking and generates new ideas beyond the written words. It shares experiences and lessons. Reading enables people to understand complex ideas.

Neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf describes “deep reading”:

“Deep reading is our species’ bridge to insight and novel thought. These processes include connecting background knowledge to new information, making analogies, drawing inferences, examining truth value, passing over into the perspectives of others (expanding empathy and knowledge), and integrating everything into critical analysis. By contrast, when we skim, we literally, physiologically, don’t have time to think. Or feel.”

Children who begin reading for pleasure early on tend to develop better cognition and mental health by adolescence​. According to Cambridge neuroscientist Barbara Sahakian:

We found significant evidence that reading is linked to important developmental factors in children, improving their cognition, mental health, and brain structure, which are cornerstones for future learning and well-being.

Similarly, research shows that writing can help develop critical thinking skills by forcing the writer to articulate reasoning and evaluate evidence:

As an instructional method, writing has long been perceived as a way to improve critical thinking...the researchers compared critical thinking performance of students who experienced a laboratory writing treatment with those who experienced traditional quiz-based laboratory in a general education biology course. The effects of writing were determined within the context of multiple covariables. Results indicated that the writing group significantly improved critical thinking skills whereas the nonwriting group did not. Specifically, analysis and inference skills increased significantly in the writing group but not the nonwriting group.

Humanity's ability to read and write has deteriorated over the past century.

Perhaps I'm nostalgic for a period that only exists in my imagination, but hear me out.

Consider mid-century authors like John Kenneth Galbraith, who's writing would be considered verbose today. Despite his fantastic ideas - he wouldn't get published today, since, for many, his elaborate style is unreadable.

One can make the argument that the goal of writing is to deliver an idea in the simplest way possible. I agree, however, the complexity of Galbraith's ideas warrants what borders on legalese.

I recently saw a stat that said 54% of Americans read at a grade 6 level. If reading and writing are indicative of reason and analysis, I would argue then that half of the country, and I'm sure this applies across the developed world, has the critical thinking skills of a 12 year old. A child's mind in an adult's body, with adult responsibilities - such as voting.

Using media as a proxy for audience comprehension, and receptiveness to "deep reading", it appears reading and writing skills have trended down over the past century. Compare children's programming, books, magazine advertisements today vs 50 years ago. I'm not saying everyone was a scholar and that every media format was academic, but there certainly was a larger segment of the population that could digest more complex forms of information. The analog nature of media, and limited switchability, created audiences with longer attention spans required for deep reading (or deep listening, deep viewing, etc.).

Today, to satiate the audience's ever-shifting attention span, almost every form of media is devoid of subtlety and nuance.

Again, I'm not saying this applies to all media and all consumers of media. However, I would suggest the segment of the population willing and able to absorb complex information - in whatever format - is shrinking.

In 2022, OpenAI launched the first publicly available AI Large Language Model. While these steadily improving models can be valuable research tools in the right hands, their popularity is supported by the outsourcing of the most basic critical thinking.

"Write a letter to convince my boss I deserve a raise."

"Reply to this email by disagreeing without sounding confrontational."

"Summarize the following document into 3 key ideas."

Perhaps there is value in these prompts, for example if they are used to develop better communication skills the user carries forward. But, more often than not, they are simply requests to outsource moderately taxing brainwork.

This will accelerate the societal decline in reading comprehension and critical thinking - especially since kids and teens are outsourcing thinking during the formative years for brain development. As older generations that didn't grow up with such tools die off, reasoning and analytical skills will decline even further over time.

So we're left with a society that can't think, outpaced by machines that don't take sick days and can work 24/7. And this population, easily swayed by rhetoric, will champion these machines as saviors. Throughout history, those who can't think have had their thinking done for them - usually against their own interests. This is why people vote for politicians that want to cut Medicare and social security. They fall for the spin and blame irrelevant scapegoats for their failures.

There will remain a segment, although smaller, of the population that values reading and writing, as the foundation of adaptable intelligence. There will be a battle between those who do so to seek truth and those who do so to manipulate the masses. Increasingly, truth seekers will be sidelined.

The manipulators use these skills to make the masses believe they are also of elevated intelligence, and if only for a few changes to society they too would be billionaires.

In my experience, the smartest in the room often lack confidence in their ideas. They can map the intricacies of reality to understand the unpredictability of outcomes. However, the morons in the room, due to their inability to dig beneath the first layer, are loud and proud that X + Y = Z. Give them the soundbites and spin, tell them they're smart, and they will line up behind those manipulating them. This builds a critical mass in support of the manipulators, shaping the society's direction.

I probably sound condescending, but this is objective reality today. Most people, despite what they might tell you, can barely think for themselves. They don't even try. This proportion will grow with the adoption of AI. This means that our collective ability to solve complex problems, make rational decisions, and act in our best interest will only get worse.

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