Cognitive Atrophy

I love AI. I really do. The way it multiplies me—my time, my thinking, my execution—is nothing short of magical. It’s become second nature now. A reflex. I reach for it the way I reach for my phone or a glass of water.

That’s both beautiful and dangerous.
Because habits are how we automate. And automation—while a gift—can become a crutch.

We saw this with our bodies. Tools made life easier, then machines took over. And slowly, muscle memory faded. Physical effort vanished. Then came gyms. Strength training. Biohacking. We are now fighting to regain what we gave away.

The same is quietly happening with the mind.
If we outsource all thinking—every analysis, every draft, every decision—to a tool, we risk something deeper: cognitive atrophy.

We stop lifting the mental weights.
We stop struggling with the messy middle.
We lose the satisfaction of solving something ourselves.

The joy of hard-earned effort is replaced by frictionless output.
The IKEA Effect—that pride we feel in making something ourselves—starts fading.

This isn’t just about productivity. It’s about identity.
Our sense of meaning and mastery is wired into the struggles we endure and the work we produce. If we skip the struggle, we may also skip the meaning.

I say this not as a Luddite, but as someone deeply invested in building the future. I believe in AI as an amplifier. But we must never stop being the thinker. The feeler. The creator.

So here’s my nudge:
• Do some intellectual heavy lifting every day.
• Question before you generate.
• Think before you prompt.
• Write a page by hand. Solve a problem with your brain.
• Teach your kids to build something from scratch—even if AI could do it in seconds.

Let AI be your assistant.
But never let it be your replacement.

We are meaning-making creatures. And meaning doesn’t come from ease—it comes from effort. Let’s not forget how to be human in the age of intelligent machines.