Am I Forgetting How to Think?

When I see an article like “Is Overreliance on AI Causing Agency Decay?”, I start by wondering if it rings true. This one does.

In this case, I also wondered what in the hell “agency decay” was. The word “agency” seems to be the new “it” word. Apparently, it means our capacity to think and act independently, make choices, and exercise control over our lives.

 

Geez, I hate jargon, especially jargon that needs a paragraph to explain it. It’s an impediment to clear communication.

But, as I often do, I diverge. Why does the article ring true to me?

 

Calculators made me a mental cripple. Well … at least when it comes to mental arithmetic.

 

I was pretty good at math. I majored in electrical engineering, which has lots and lots of math, and became quite facile with it. I could do a lot of arithmetic in my head. I could look at my solution to an equation and instinctively know if it was roughly right. My only tool was a slide rule.

 

And then along came calculators and later Excel. As I increasingly used them, my ability to do math in my head eroded … and remains eroded. I guess I stopped practicing something I had once been good at. Use it or lose it in action.

 

And then search engines like Google made it worse.

 

I also had a voluminous memory. When I had chickenpox as a kid, I was bored out of my mind. I felt OK but couldn’t do anything. My family had a set of those little skinnied-down Golden Books encyclopedias. I actually read the damned things. I am reminded of Rosie Perez’s character in White Men Can’t Jump, cramming to get on Jeopardy. That was me … as she said, my head was full of a lot of useless shit.

 

Anyway, for a long time, I just didn’t need to look up stuff.

 

And then along came search. Now I don’t need to remember stuff. I just reach for my iPhone and Google it. My lazy mind seems to have learned that it doesn’t need to remember stuff … and it doesn’t. Use it or lose it, redux.

 

Now, I can’t prove that calculators and Google caused all of this. But I certainly gave my arithmetic and memory a lot less exercise once it became easy to get along without them.

 

And now, along comes AI.

 

When I read the article, I worry that my use of AI could erode my ability to reason and think critically. To detect BS, for example.

It seems to me that that is dangerous. Especially if I need to detect BS coming from the very tool I’m relying on to help me think.

 

The article’s author, Cornelia Walther, does have some useful advice. She calls it the “A-Frame.” More terminology … but the advice is worth considering.

 

Here’s what I take from it:

 

• • Before asking AI for help, stop long enough to consider what I’m asking it to do. Help me write something? Or decide what I think?

• • Use it to help me understand a subject, compare alternatives, and spot things I may have missed. I still need to decide what matters.

• • Check its work. A confident answer can still be wrong. And occasionally do the work without AI so I remember how.

• • For important thinking, take the first crack myself.

That last one particularly appeals to me. Before I ask AI what it thinks, I should figure out what I think … and why. Then let it challenge me. Show me what I missed. Point out where my reasoning doesn’t hold up. FYI, I did just that for this blog post. I wrote the 1st draft and then asked AI to challenge my reasoning and improve my writing.

 

I like having these tools. I use them. I’m certainly not going back to my slide rule.

 

But I’d like to keep enough of my own wits to know when the answer is nonsense.

 

And I suspect that means continuing to do some of the thinking myself.

 

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/is-overreliance-on-ai-causing-agency-decay/?utm_campaign=KatW_Monthly2026&utm_medium=email&utm_source=kw_campaign_monitor&utm_term=10-4-2026&utm_content=Is_Overreliance_on_AI_Causing_Agency_Decay