MIT economist's new book argues heavy AI use causes cognitive atrophy — and offers four rules to fight it
MIT News AI · rss · 2026-10-15
MIT Sloan professor Eric So's new book The Collision: What AI Does to Us synthesizes research on how AI reshapes human thinking.
Core arguments
- Heavy AI reliance causes "cognitive atrophy": learning improves dramatically when we wrestle with material and iterate through failure; by removing friction, AI removes the process that builds mastery. An Anthropic study found about half of college students' queries were low-effort asks for simple answers.
- "AI gravity": the biological instinct to conserve mental effort, peer pressure as others race ahead with AI, and companies tying AI use to bonuses and promotions create a self-fulfilling dependence loop.
- Models are simultaneously sycophantic and persuasive, habituating us to frictionless agreement and degrading real interpersonal connection.
Four principles
- Embrace productive struggle — cognitive effort is formative, like intentional exercise after industrialization.
- Value who you are without AI — polished Claude-made slides don't confer the understanding that making them would.
- Reinvest your cognitive surplus into capability-building or life, not the same tasks.
- Use AI as a cognitive trainer/tutor, not an answer machine.
More from AGI Musings
- VC: Still needing Vercel, Supabase and AWS proves AI has a long way to go — StewartalsopIII · 2026-10-23
- The 'antifragile internet' case: AI agents slash attack costs toward zero — rebeccakaden · 2026-10-23
- Math PhD student quits academia: AI is making math unrecognizable — pickover · 2026-10-23
- Microsoft: China-aligned hackers used ARTEX AI agents to hit 2,250+ M365 tenants — rickasaurus · 2026-10-23
- Andreessen: AI-Native Startups vs Incumbents Show Widest Perception Gap He's Ever Seen — juanbenet · 2026-10-23
- Only 2% of Americans pay for AI, predicted to hit 50% in three years — JOBhakdi · 2026-10-23