Stop Blaming AI for Problems That Were Already There

I've heard it dozens of times in the last two years: “AI is making people dumb because we are no longer thinking”. While the evidence of over-reliance on AI tools can lead to cognitive decline, I don’t think that’s the full picture. 

We've Always Outsourced Our Thinking
Long before LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude, people tuned in to talk shows to decide what was worth being outraged about, to influencers to decide what was worth buying, to advertising to decide what made them attractive, successful, or enough. Podcasts, news outlets, bestseller lists, trend cycles are all examples of modern media designed to tell people what to think. Bias, groupthink, and harm didn't originate in a large language model. They originated in, well, humans. They are evident in the systems and institutions we’ve designed and built (intentionally and unintentionally), to favor conformity over independent thought.AI didn't actually create the problem of outsourced thinking, it just amplified it.  

Fix the Root
If we spend all of our energy trying to regulate and restrict AI without examining the human values, institutional structures, and systemic inequities baked into the data it learns from, we’re only slowing down the symptom versus addressing the deeper problem.  

Responsible AI governance asks: What does this AI model or system reflect about us and are we willing to change? This isn’t so much about technology as it is about organizations, society, people. It's exactly the kind of question that AI governance professionals, organizational development leaders, and ethicists need to ask.

Want to think through what your organization's AI use might be reflecting and how to overcome it authentically and intentionally? That's exactly the kind of work I do. 

Start the conversation at TawanaTownsendConsulting.com.