#ai and thinking
Senwitt pages tagged ai and thinking — blog posts, answers, glossary terms, research, and more.
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Brain exercise for lawyers and paralegals in the AI era
Legal-tech tools shift drafting and research onto AI, but the close-reading and judgment muscles still belong to the lawyer. A practice routine for the working day.
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Daily practice for writers in the AI era
What working writers can do to keep their own voice while AI tools take over more of the drafting pipeline. Cited evidence plus a concrete practice routine.
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Daily writing practice when AI writes faster
A deep-dive into what daily writing practice actually looks like in 2026, why the originating act matters, and the published evidence behind the calibration position.
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Deep reading when everything summarises
What daily deep-reading practice looks like in 2026, the published evidence on AI summarisation and critical thinking, and why sustained attention is a habit that responds to use.
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Design judgment and AI generative tools
Figma AI, Midjourney, and the rest of the generative stack produce options at scale. The cognitive act that defines a designer is deciding — not generating. A practice routine for designers in 2026.
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Executive judgment when everything is AI-mediated
Leadership judgment in a working day that runs through AI from end to end. What the 2026 research suggests, the team-level modelling effect, and a defensible practice routine.
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Founder judgment in the AI era
The originating cognitive acts of running a company — judgment under uncertainty, deciding before knowing — are exactly the ones AI most easily takes over. A practice routine for shipping-heavy schedules.
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GPS changed our memory — what AI might do too
The 2020 UCL study is the cleanest natural experiment in the cognitive-offloading literature. The mechanism is direct, the parallel to AI is real, and the practical advice is the same.
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OpenAI's reasoning models: do they fix the thinking problem?
OpenAI's o-series reasoning models 'think before answering' using chain-of-thought-style processing. That changes what the model does. It does not change what the user does — and the cognitive-offloading concern is about the user.
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Reasoning practice when ChatGPT thinks for you
What daily reasoning practice looks like in 2026, the published evidence on AI mediation and critical thinking, and a practice routine that keeps the originating cognitive act on the calendar.
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The Google effect and what it means for AI
The 2011 Sparrow et al. paper started the cognitive-offloading conversation in earnest. The 2024 meta-analysis sharpened the picture. The AI extension is the natural next step.
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Transactive memory: when AI is the partner
Daniel Wegner's 1985 framework explained how long-term couples share a single memory system. In 2011, Sparrow et al. extended the frame to search engines. AI is the next layer.
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Use it or lose it: the skill-decay literature
The Arthur et al. 1998 meta-analysis is the canonical reference for skill decay. The deliberate-practice tradition explains the inverse. The AI moment is the reason the pattern matters now.
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How to use ChatGPT without losing your edge
The MIT cognitive-debt paper documented what daily ChatGPT use does to the cognitive surface underneath your work. Four habits that consistently work — and the daily-practice block that ties them together.
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The morning ritual for knowledge workers in the AI era
AI changed what mornings cost knowledge workers. The old pre-work block — coffee, reading, the first deliberate thinking of the day — is now competing with the ChatGPT tab. A 2026 morning ritual that survives.
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An honest self-assessment for AI dependency (no clinical pretense)
A self-check based on Talkspace, Psychology Today, and HBR coverage of AI dependency in knowledge workers — symptoms, signals, and a small habit response that doesn't require quitting AI.
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Is ChatGPT actually making students lazy? Sorting the evidence
A close read of the MIT cognitive debt study, Cal Newport's New Yorker essay, and The Conversation's earlier coverage — and what the evidence actually supports about ChatGPT and student thinking.
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A five-minute daily thinking habit, designed for AI-heavy days
A practical five-to-seven-minute daily routine for keeping writing, math, code, memory, reading, and reasoning in regular practice when the rest of your day runs on AI.
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Avoiding skill atrophy: how engineers can use AI coding tools without losing the craft
Anthropic's 2026 study measured a 17% drop in developer skill formation when AI coding assistants did the heavy lifting. Here is how to use AI without paying that cost.
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What the MIT cognitive debt study actually shows (and what reporters keep getting wrong)
A careful read of the 2025 MIT Media Lab cognitive debt study — what it tested, what it found, what coverage often overstates, and what it means for daily practice.
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AI brain fry: why your head feels foggy after a day on AI chatbots
A cited explainer on 'AI brain fry' — the cognitive fatigue knowledge workers report after long stretches of AI use, what BCG and HBR have measured, and how to keep practice in your day.
- glossary
AI brain fry
AI brain fry is the colloquial 2026 phrase for the cognitive fatigue and mental fog workers report after long stretches of working with AI assistants.
- glossary
AI dependency
AI dependency is the pattern of overusing or over-trusting AI tools to the point that unaided work feels harder than it should — colloquially borrowed from clinical vocabulary, not a clinical diagnosis.
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AI fatigue
AI fatigue is the cognitive and emotional exhaustion produced by sustained use of AI tools at work — adjacent to and partly overlapping with 'AI brain fry.'
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AI overreliance
AI overreliance is the academic term for using AI past the point of useful assistance — where it substitutes for the cognitive work rather than supporting it.
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Cognitive debt
Cognitive debt is the gap between what AI helps you produce and what you actually encode while producing it — coined by the 2025 MIT Media Lab study on LLM-assisted essay writing.
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Cognitive offloading
Cognitive offloading is the use of external tools — notebooks, calculators, search engines, AI assistants — to reduce internal mental effort on a task.
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Skill atrophy
Skill atrophy is the gradual loss of a cognitive or technical skill when it stops being practiced — the use-it-or-lose-it principle applied to AI-era workflows.
- answers
Does using AI make programmers worse at coding?
Anthropic's 2026 study found AI-assisted developers scored ~17 points lower on an immediate comprehension quiz when learning a new library. Here is what that means, and what it doesn't.
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How do I stop relying on AI for writing?
Three working habits to recalibrate AI use in writing without quitting the tool entirely. Based on cognitive-offloading research and practitioner takes.
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Is ChatGPT making me dumber?
Probably not 'dumber' in any general sense. But sustained AI use does measurably reduce certain practice signals — and that has a real answer.
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Should I use ChatGPT for studying?
Yes — but only for some kinds of studying. The research is clear on which uses help and which quietly hurt. Here is the practical breakdown.
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What is AI brain fry, exactly?
AI brain fry is the colloquial 2026 phrase for cognitive fatigue from sustained AI use at work. Here is what the BCG, HBR, and CNN coverage actually says.
- guides
The honest list: writing tools and habits that respect human voice in 2026
AI-free writing tools and habits — Write Every Day, TypeSlate, Ulysses, Ellipsus, Reedsy, plus the practice habits that keep your voice intact even when you use AI elsewhere.
- data
AI use and cognitive skill self-reports (2025-2026)
Published survey data on what knowledge workers say about AI's effect on their cognitive skills — drawn from Pew, BCG, Microsoft+Carnegie Mellon, and HBR coverage. Self-report, not measured cognition.
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Why brain exercise matters now.
The AI cognitive drift problem.
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Daily writing practice.
The Writing Skill.
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Code reasoning practice.
The Code Skill.
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Reading practice.
The Reading Skill.
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AI cognitive debt — what the MIT study says.
The MIT cognitive debt study explained.
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Cognitive offloading and AI.
Cognitive offloading explainer.
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Transactive memory and AI.
Wegner 1985 framing extended to AI.
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AI brain fry — research treatment.
BCG/HBR/Pew data on AI cognitive fatigue.
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Programmer cognitive skills and AI.
Anthropic 2026 study + developer skill atrophy.
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For knowledge workers.
Brain exercise for AI-heavy knowledge workers.
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For students.
Brain exercise for students who use AI.
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For AI professionals.
Brain exercise for AI-heavy workers.
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For developers.
Brain exercise for AI-era developers.
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For writers.
Brain exercise for writers.
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For parents.
Brain exercise for parents.
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For teachers.
Brain exercise for teachers.
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For designers.
Brain exercise for visual + UX designers.
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For lawyers.
Brain exercise for lawyers + paralegals.
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For marketers.
Brain exercise for marketers + content folks.
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For finance professionals.
Brain exercise for analysts and traders.
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For executives.
Brain exercise for leaders in the AI-summary era.
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For ChatGPT users.
Brain exercise for heavy ChatGPT users.
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For product managers.
Brain exercise for PMs in the AI-spec era.
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For researchers.
Brain exercise for researchers in the AI-summary era.
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For journalists.
Brain exercise for reporters and editors.
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For consultants.
Brain exercise for consultants in the AI-deck era.
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Your Brain on ChatGPT.
Kosmyna 2025 deep dive + Stanković 2026 critique.