"Tolstoy's story, and even the title, is clearly unsettling. But it's not a story about death, it's about life. Tolstoy's narrative shines a light on a life lived on borrowed terms. It was a life that was unquestioned, unexamined, and, in the final analysis, unclaimed. Ivan Ilyich was respectable, even successful, but still a hollow man left on his deathbed with little more than the torment of introspection."
"But what's new is the scale and seduction of borrowed cognition in the age of AI. Today, machines can now mimic thoughts with both ease and fluency. They can draft emails, legal briefs, or heartfelt letters that are polished, persuasive, and even profound. Yet beneath the surface lies nothing-no understanding, no intention, no soul. This is anti-intelligence, the performance of knowing without comprehension. Simply put, it's counterfeit cognition."
A magistrate lived a life shaped by convention and social respectability, only recognizing on his deathbed that he never truly lived. The life was unquestioned, unexamined, and ultimately unclaimed, producing a hollow person who mistook respectability for meaning. The modern risk mirrors that fate through artificial intelligence, which tempts people to outsource thinking to machines. Machines can mimic thought with fluency—drafting polished, persuasive text—yet they lack understanding, intention, and soul. This counterfeit cognition performs knowing without comprehension, enlarging conformity and offering the comfort of belonging at the expense of individuality and authentic selfhood.
Read at Psychology Today
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