Is AI Making Us Forget How to Think?
What is thinking made up of? Analytical, reflectiveness, strategy and insight.
These are just a few of the traits that come under Critical Thinking; A skill I honestly didn’t know had a name until I got to university.
That might sound a little ‘pick-me,’ but remember I was homeschooled and the way I approached tasks and life was just seen as intuitive. Therefore, I understood my accelerated understanding of the world as coming from sheer intuition. So when I started a subject unit called ‘Develop Critical Thinking in Others,’ I started to get what it was that I’d been doing for the past ten years.
For many of us in marketing, critical thinking is our bread and butter with a healthy dose of luck. On a daily basis in the workplace we can agree that we have to make use of problem solving, ideating and explorative skills to deliver for clients. The expectation from them is also that we’re kind of just expected to know what they want. Let’s add telepathy to the list and we’re set for life.
However, Critical Thinking is a skill that you have to train to be fully effective and go beyond mere intuition.
And I say skill because it is, in the same way the creative process is actually a skill (Graham Wallas).
Preparation. Gather facts. Define the problem. Explore initial ideas.
Incubation. Let the subconscious do its thing.
Illumination. Eureka!
Verification. Test. Refine. Implement.
Critical Thinking follows a very similar track, which leaves an obvious question in the air. Is Critical Thinking also creative?
Common sense, they say, is missing more and more from the world. There’s evidence to prove it. In this Information Age, we have so much at our fingertips, but mentally we’re trying less and less to discover an answer. I’m reading a book right now called The Maniac by Benjamín Labatut, and through the book’s protagonist, Von Neuman, we learn just how quickly our knowledge of physics changed from a logical theory (which Albert Einstein advocated) to one not on logic but on vast amounts of calculations! Allow me to introduce… the computer. The child of Quantum Mechanics. At the time, this was otherworldly and incomprehensible thinking. Now it is still otherworldly, but we comprehend it more.
Recently on The Diary Of A CEO, Steven Bartlett and two brain experts discussed the impact of 47% less cognitive load on brains using AI. It struck me that the impact lasted longer than the use of the tool! Brain function was more difficult to activate fully after extensive AI use. Meanwhile, Canva recently reported that 93% of marketers trust AI to truthfully and accurately represent their brand. If AI is used in a way that harms long-term brain activation and neural strength, what will become of the brand? A slow slip into something homogenous? Plain? Accepted as just alright?
With the whole world rushing to implement AI so they don’t get left behind, it does make you wonder why a recent MIT study revealed 95% of implementation projects have had no meaningful impact on businesses. Sit and think about that for a moment. The reason for this massive implementation failure is described in the article, “people and organizations simply [do] not understand how to use the AI tools properly or how to design workflows that could capture the benefits of AI while minimizing downside risks.”
Instead they use it to do their thinking for them. If it really is reducing brain function when used to merely replace thought, won’t that make current AI implementation projects harm the company long-term?
Let me be clear that AI is not the enemy here.
Unethical impact from uneducated AI use as well as the impact on an employee’s ability to think is the enemy. In most businesses now, Critical Thinking is under attack.
In terms of AI’s impact on marketing and the worlds I inhabit; it’s had a huge effect on how people perceive value in marketing. Clients need more proof of value because they can generate their own marketing plans and content pieces with a couple of prompts. Why pay an expert when AI will have PhD knowledge? Or so OpenAI says. Learning to learn is important, and maintaining that skill is something I think we’ll all need to be more purposeful about. So for my part, I went looking online and found a Coursera short course; Learning How to Learn.
Because many of us are unintentionally unlearning it.
When I ended up listening to that DOAC podcast episode I was surprised to find that they mentioned the course as guest Daniel G. Amen, M.D. had a hand in the development of the content. Small world. As I start taking on the mantle of Account Manager, it falls to me to develop the skills of the team’s thinking and learning, because being able to learn, think and apply is key to getting anywhere in life. As marketers, it’s how we can interpret culture changes, industry facts and personal brands so quickly. As leaders, it’s important we give space and emphasise the importance of space in development of anything, like projects. Doing things faster may come at a cost which we should be aware of before tightening expectations for deliverables for our teams.
That’s pressure. I know. Pressure makes diamonds, but people aren’t diamonds.
So how does AI relieve that dreaded, mounting pressure? Social Star got in an expert to learn, of course! Mark Byrne from Headspring gave an excellent presentation to the Social Star team two weeks ago about AI and it’s role in business growth. He said ‘if I could put the genie back in the bottle I would, but that’s not an option’. Sam Altman has also said words more or less to that effect. The rest of us have much more at stake to mean it.
At the Australian national level, we are in debate about whether to let big tech steal our entire nation’s IP for free in the name of progress, or make the tech bros pay for it. 83% of SME leaders, as found in an Australian Readiness Report, believe artificial intelligence will impact their business within a year, but only 44% have made it a priority. Only 40% of the total feel confident implementing the tech. We have OpenAI intending to open up a HQ in this country soon, but we also have serious efforts to grow our own AND pay the country’s brilliant minds for their knowledge to be fed into it.
Australia is trying really hard to not rush into this, and I think that’s the right approach. We’re a steady, down the line kind of people, and in the madness of this tech storm that stillness of mind leads to solutions that have clarity.
AI after all is a magnification tool, but it won’t fix your problems. It will just help you make them faster. Instead, it is a tool we need to learn how to use more efficiently and effectively for our critically thinking minds to solve problems faster.
As we’re wrapping up, I remind you these reflections are only informed by a marketer’s perspective, so consider how AI is influencing your industry before you take this article’s thoughts and run with them! But…
If you’re wrestling with how to move your brand forward, let’s talk.