Avoiding AI Tools Preserves Human Cognitive Sovereignty and Character Development
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/wendy-liu. "I avoid AI tools because thinking is supposed to be hard. It’s what makes us human | Wendy Liu | The Guardian." May 24, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
The author argues we shouldn't use AI tools because struggling with hard thinking is what makes us human and helps us grow. She believes AI companies want to control how we think, and if we let machines do our thinking for us, we'll lose our ability to think for ourselves.
Conclusion
We should avoid using AI tools because thinking is fundamentally human, and outsourcing cognitive tasks to AI threatens both individual intellectual development and collective autonomy
Premises
- Thinking and struggling with difficult intellectual tasks is what makes us fundamentally human and builds character
- AI tools promote 'cognitive offloading' that causes our intellectual faculties to atrophy through disuse
- Research suggests that even brief AI chatbot usage may negatively impact human cognition
- AI companies are attempting to privatize intelligence itself, making thought a utility they control
- Young people growing up with AI will view technology as an incomprehensible black box, reducing their agency and understanding
- The learning process itself - including struggle, failure, and discovery - is valuable beyond just the end product
- Preserving cognitive sovereignty is a political act of resistance against corporate control over human intelligence
Assumptions
- Intellectual struggle and difficulty are inherently valuable for human development
- Efficiency and convenience are not always desirable if they come at the cost of human agency
- AI tools fundamentally change the nature of thinking rather than just assisting it
- Corporate control over AI represents a threat to human autonomy
- The process of learning is as important as the outcomes achieved