Stephen Downes

"I am cool with a lot of cognitive surrender," writes Ethan Mollick. "I don't remember phone numbers anymore because my phone does that for me. I am happy my kids didn't need to learn cursive. I am fine with calculators doing my daily math and my computer figuring out how to schedule my classes. These were once useful skills, but we were probably right to get rid of them." But we need to be intentional about this, and we need to continue the work that sharpens our ideas and defines our own unique style (which is why I write all these posts by hand, with no AI interaction). It's not that AI writing is bad, per se, but that when badly prompted, it's not sharp or clear or intentional. "Balancing using AI with our own mental abilities is going to be a defining challenge of the coming years," says Mollick. I agree.