Thinking and AI

Thinkinginthe age of Alisnot aboutcompetingwith machines butaboutredefiningwhatit means tobehuman. Itcallsfor slowingdowninafastworld, asking questionsinan age of answers, andexercising judgmentinacultureof automation. Thefuturewill belongnottothosewho think fasterthanmachines, butto thosewho think morewisely, ethically, andimaginatively alongsidethem. AImay change howwethink, butitneed not changewhywethink. Aslongas humans continue toseek meaning, justice,and understanding, thinkingwill remaina distinctly human endeavour ~onethatno algorithmcanreplace

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The age of artificial intelligence is not merely transforming machines; it is reshaping the very nature of human thinking. From search engines that complete our sentences to algorithms that recommend what we read, watch, and buy, AI has quietly become an invisible companion to everyday cognition.

While earlier technologies extended human physical capacities, Al extends - and in some cases replaces ~ mental processes such as memory, pattern recognition, and decision-making. This profound shift raises an urgent question: what does it mean to thinkin an age where machines also “think”?

Human thinking has traditionally been understood as an active, effortful process involving reasoning, imagination, judgment, and reflection. It is shaped by experience, culture, emotion, and ethical awareness. Artificial intelligence, by contrast, operates through data, algorithms, and statistical correlations. It does not think in the human sense; it computes. Yet because AI systems increasingly perform tasks once considered the exclusive domain of human intelligence ~ writing, diagnosing, predicting, even creating art ~ the boundary between human and machine cognition appears to blur.

One of the most immediate impacts of AI isonmemory and knowledge. Search engines and digital assistants have become external repositories of information, reducing the need to memorise facts. This phenomenon, sometimes called “cognitive offloading,” allows humans to focus on higher-order thinking. However, it also risks weakening deep understanding. When information is instantly available, the temptation is to skim rather than reflect, to retrieve rather than internalise. Thinking becomes fragmented, driven by speed rather than depth.