AI Abstinence Won’t Work – Fast Company
- We've entered an era where our digital lives are not just reflected in technology, but actively constructed by it.
- Amanda Hanna-McLeer, who is working on a documentary about young people who eschew digital platforms, expresses her greatest fear as cognitive offloading.
- The growing movement to avoid AI may be a necessary form of cognitive self-preservation.
The Cognitive Cost of Convenience
Table of Contents
We’ve entered an era where our digital lives are not just reflected in technology, but actively constructed by it. this isn’t simply a matter of convenience; it’s a matter of our own dignity.Without our consent, the internet was mined and our collective online lives were transformed into the inputs for a gargantuan machine. Then the companies that did it told us to pay them for the output: a talking information bank spring-loaded with accrued human knowledge but devoid of human specificity. The social media age warped our self-perception, and now the AI era stands to subsume it.
The Erosion of Internal knowledge
Amanda Hanna-McLeer, who is working on a documentary about young people who eschew digital platforms, expresses her greatest fear as cognitive offloading. She points to apps like Google Maps as an example, arguing they erode our sense of place. ”People don’t know how to get to work on their own,” she says. “That’s knowledge deferred and eventually lost.” As we increasingly rely on large language models, we risk relinquishing even more of our intelligence.
Exposure Avoidance
The growing movement to avoid AI may be a necessary form of cognitive self-preservation. These models threaten to diminish our neural capacity - or at least, how we currently utilize it – at an alarming rate. A recent study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that active users of LLM technology “consistently underperformed at neural,linguistic,and behavioral levels.”
A Return to Simplicity
People are actively seeking ways to limit their exposure. There’s a resurgence of dumbphones, the formation of high school Luddite clubs, and even a TextEdit renaissance. A single friend reports that a rejection of AI is now a common “green flag” on dating app profiles. A small but dedicated group proclaims to avoid using the technology entirely.
However, framing this as simply a matter of consumer choice risks minimizing the larger challenge of the tech industry’s influence on our thinking. Companies are even capitalizing on this sentiment, building a market niche specifically for those who dislike the technology.
Cultural signifiers and declarations of individual purity are unlikely to be effective. We’ve seen the limitations of abstinence-only approaches before. While prioritizing logging off and reducing individual consumption is valuable,it won’t be enough to drive structural change,according to Hanna-McLeer.
A Ancient Parallel
The concern that new technologies will diminish our intelligence is not new. Similar objections arose with social media, television, radio – even writing itself. Socrates worried that the written tradition would degrade our intelligence and memory, as Trust in writing…will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding
, as recorded by Plato in Phaedrus.
The Inevitability of AI
The biggest challenge is that, at the current rate, opting out of AI will become increasingly tough. For many, the decision will be dictated by employers, the companies they patronize, or the platforms providing essential services. disconnecting is already becoming a luxury.
Like other harmful habits, people will be aware of the downsides of relying on LLMs but will continue to use them due to their utility and entertainment value. Some hope that AI will ultimately liberate us from screens,addressing another digital toxin. I aim to use these tools strategically, like a digital bloodhound, to flag relevant updates and content for my own review.
Misaligned with the Business Model – and the threat
A consumer-choice approach to mitigating AI’s negative consequences is fundamentally misaligned with the underlying business model and the scale of the threat. Many AI integrations will be invisible to everyday users. LLM companies are heavily invested in enterprise and business-to-business sectors, and are even selling their tools to the government.
AI is moving beyond app-based interfaces and becoming embedded in our digital and physical infrastructure. Search engines like Google have already transitioned from link indexers to AI-powered answer machines. OpenAI has built a search engine based on its chatbot. Apple plans to integrate AI directly into its operating systems.
the movement to curb AI’s abuses cannot rely solely on individual choices. Simply choosing not to consume is insufficient, much like avoiding meat, conflict minerals, or conserving energy. AI asceticism alone won’t suffice.
The logic of the Sabbath remains relevant: we need to periodically remember what it’s like to inhabit and operate within our own minds.