AI and the Slope of Cognition

Thought can gain forward movement without increasing depth. Faster idea movement can occur while cognition is handed off rather than actively exercised. Fluent outputs can appear even when understanding is not present. Performance can improve as participation is reduced, and the path of cognition can change while visible progress continues. Intelligence is often treated as a stable capacity refined through learning, but AI can shift how that capacity is used. A capacity may keep the same form while its trajectory changes, raising questions about whether the capacity is engaged and where it points. Speed alone may not measure meaningful direction or depth.

"We've spent decades building machines that moved information faster, but large language models seemed to be doing something different. They appeared to influence the "movement of ideas" themselves rather than simply accelerating the transmission. Questions produced new questions, unexpected concepts connected, and thinking felt active in ways I had not experienced."

"What emerged from this cognitive journey was the idea that thought can accelerate without becoming deeper and performance can improve while participation is reduced. So I'm beginning to wonder whether velocity was measuring the wrong thing."

"Later, I found myself writing about cognitive surrender, those moments when thinking is handed off rather than exercised, and anti-intelligence, the idea that fluent AI output can emerge without understanding itself being present. What emerged from this cognitive journey was the idea that thought can accelerate without becoming deeper and performance can improve while participation is reduced."

"For a long time we've treated intelligence as something essentially stable, a capacity refined through learning and experience. I think that AI introduces a shift in this dynamic. A fixed capacity can still have a variable trajectory, and that trajectory may be what's actually changing. The question at hand is whether we are using that capacity at all, and in which direction it points when we do."

Read at Psychology Today