"Agency is what keeps us from running on cognitive autopilot. Artificial intelligence now offers to do much of that work for us. With a single prompt, we can receive elegant summaries and polished solutions that are so smooth and immediate that they can (and often do) lull us into submission. If we aren't careful, we risk becoming passengers in our own intellectual journey, letting the machine set the course."
"AI can also be the ultimate training partner, a sparring partner for the mind that forces us to level up. The essential challenge is to keep agency at the center of the interaction and to make sure we are directing the conversation rather than outsourcing it. Critical thinking has always been the backbone of education, but in the age of AI, it needs a serious upgrade."
Human agency is the ability to direct one's own thinking, deciding what to learn, what to believe, and when to pause before accepting an answer. Agency prevents cognitive autopilot. AI can perform much cognitive work by producing smooth, immediate summaries and solutions that can lull people into passive acceptance. AI can also function as a demanding training partner that provokes deeper thinking when users maintain control. The core challenge is ensuring agency remains central so people direct conversations with AI rather than outsource them. Critical thinking requires upgrading into an agency-focused literacy that helps prioritize questions, shape inquiry, and stay engaged even when machine answers appear sufficient.
Read at Psychology Today
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