By Charles Hugh Smith
OfTwoMinds.com
September 12, 2026
AI can't do our learning or thinking for us, but it excels at making us dependent on its substitution of learning and thinking, and the resulting state of helplessness when we have to think for ourselves.
There are a number of things we already know about AI: one is that we can't automate learning, we can only automate dependence on AI. This can be expanded to: we can't automate learning how to think independently, we can only automate the helplessness of being dependent on AI.
The use of AI in education to substitute for actual learning has pushed reading-and reading comprehension, i.e. the ability to truly learn and think for oneself-off a cliff. What AI does is automate dependence on AI, at the cost of students learning how to "connect the dots" on their own.
This process of connecting dots beyond what was taught in the lesson plan requires an ability to research variety of subjects and think about them independently, that is, not as a process of rote regurgitation for an exam but thinking as the source of "aha" moments, where we come to understand something in a new, intuitive way, not just as a collection of facts.
Correspondent P.S. has worked extensively with AI tools, and he encapsulated what AI can't do for us / automate:
"This missing faculty is probably one of the clearest remaining boundaries between present AI and genuinely general intelligence. It isn't knowing more. It is seeing what matters before somebody labels it for you."
This is the intuitive leap from being told "this is the way it is" and accepting that uncritically, and seeing connections beyond what's already labeled for our consumption. This is thinking independently, and it requires thoughtful, focused reading of often difficult texts, re-reading key passages, and connecting ideas and concepts-i.e. labels for broad swaths of knowledge-in ways that extend beyond the conventional labels.
AI can't do our learning or thinking for us, but it excels at making us dependent on its substitution of learning and thinking, and the resulting state of helplessness when we have to think for ourselves. AI makes it convenient to learn nothing deeply enough to matter, and in this way it is Ultra-Processed Cognition, the equivalent of social media's endless Ultra-Processed scroll of eye-catching, emotion-arousing crunchy snack texts and images.
So when we finally awaken to the profound loss of our ability to research, think and connect disparate ideas and concepts beyond the Ultra-Processed Labels of convention, we find we've lost the ability to connect anything beyond our dependence and our helplessness.
This article was originally published on OfTwoMinds.com.