When AI Changes the Shape of Thought

"No surprise, I've been thinking about thinking lately. And it isn't driven by anxiety about superintelligence or the usual debates about the loss of human agency. This change is harder to name. Something about the presence of AI that nudges our minds into "positions" we rarely adopt with other people. We lean into AI in ways that don't come naturally. And this very act of thinking in the company of a machine starts to feel, at least to me, like learning a new stance."

"For a long time, our thoughts developed from the "inside out" and in the context of a shared human environment. Even brilliant conversations carried the familiar aspects of cognitive uncertainty and biological fatigue. You and I have hesitated and wandered. We took time to circle an idea before embracing our conclusion. That human rhythm shaped how we understood ideas and each other."

AI nudges human minds into cognitive positions rarely adopted with other people. Human thought patterns shift from an inside-out, uncertain rhythm to an externally paced, machine-shaped tempo. The machine's endurance and tendency to deliver fully formed ideas reduce the usual hesitations and fatigue of human dialogue. People adapt by matching AI's speed, deciding faster, and letting intuition act as a rapid filter that accepts, rejects, or refines machine proposals. That adaptation often occurs before conscious awareness and reshapes how ideas are initially formed and evaluated. Once AI bends a thought, it rarely reverts to its prior shape.

Read at Psychology Today