Why AI May Encourage a Drift Towards Mediocrity

The risk is that we come to accept 'good enough' results as the norm in exchange for AI's efficiency.

- Wolfgang Messner

Artificial intelligence began as a quest to simulate the human brain. Is it now in the process of transforming the human brain's role in daily life? The Industrial Revolution diminished the need for manual labor. As someone who researches the application of AI in international business, I cannot help but wonder whether it is spurring a cognitive revolution, obviating the need for certain cognitive processes as it reshapes how students, workers and artists write, design and decide.

Graphic designers use AI to quickly create a slate of potential logos for their clients. Marketers test how AI-generated customer profiles will respond to ad campaigns. Software engineers deploy AI coding assistants. Students wield AI to draft essays in record time—and teachers use similar tools to provide feedback. The economic and cultural implications are profound. What happens to the writer who no longer struggles with the perfect phrase, or the designer who no longer sketches dozens of variations before finding the right one? Will they become increasingly dependent on these cognitive prosthetics, similar to how using GPS diminishes navigation skills? And how can human creativity and critical thinking be preserved in an age of algorithmic abundance?

Echoes of the Industrial Revolution
We have been here before. The Industrial Revolution replaced artisanal craftsmanship with mechanized production, enabling goods to be replicated and manufactured on a mass scale. Shoes, cars, and crops could be produced efficiently and uniformly. But products also became blander, predictable, and stripped of individuality. Craftsmanship retreated to the margins, as a luxury or a form of resistance.