The trajectory of humanity has been toward greater efficiency. We continually create things to shorten the time it takes to reach a desired goal. From the Agricultural Revolution, roaring through the Industrial Era, straight into the Digital Age, it’s been one long battle to make our lives more convenient.
During our hunter-gatherer phase, much time was dedicated to hunting; a long process of tracking and stalking to kill an animal, with no guarantee of success. Today, we go to the supermarket where someone else has done the work for us. We have streamlined the process of obtaining food. We removed the extra steps between our desires and the outcome, which leaves us more time and resources to invest in other activities.
This is universally a good thing. However, in some cases of convenience, there is value in the steps we seek to remove. In our effort to live in a world of instant access, what might we be losing with it?
What is the cost of convenience?
The Convenience Trap
Uber is an exceptional service. You can pinpoint exactly where you are, where you’re going, and the total time and cost of your journey. It removes the hassle of driving, walking, or taking public transport. It’s fast and efficient.
Food delivery apps have streamlined the process of getting food even more than supermarkets. With the push of a few buttons, a hot meal is delivered directly to your door. You don’t even have to get out of your dressing gown.
These services have removed an immense amount of friction, albeit at a cost.
The two primary costs of this convenience are financial and health-related. Financial, because it costs money, and health-related, because we end up walking less, eating less healthy food, and becoming lazy. A coworker once complimented me, saying that it’s cool I bring in my own meals, much to my dismay. It’s now viewed as unusual to bring in your own food. Buying every meal has become the new standard.
Look, one Uber doesn’t break the bank. One takeaway doesn’t destroy your health. One cigarette doesn’t give you cancer. But it’s these repeated actions that slowly chip away at your quality of life. It’s a slow death of a thousand convenient cuts.
It doesn’t stop there; the second-order effect is that once you start wandering down the paved path of convenience, that rugged track we used to walk down no longer looks as appealing. I know people who refuse to walk 20 minutes or who believe the only way to get to the airport is by using Uber. They have become so accustomed to convenience that the default method we grew up with no longer occurs as an option.
That being said, if Uber and delivery apps ceased to exist, humanity wouldn’t end. You might spend more time travelling, but you’d still get to your destination. You might not be able to do a slow-cooked oxtail, but you can cook a burger. We can afford to trade these skills for the sake of convenience.
But there are certain abilities which we must preserve: mainly our cognitive abilities and the willingness to endure difficult tasks. These skills are essential to hold onto because it's inevitable that we will face challenges that require mental perseverance to overcome. And when that time comes, what happens when you’ve voluntarily surrendered your tenacity and cognitive abilities?
Outsource at your own discretion.
Where it can get worse.
When you depend on GPS, your natural navigational skills diminish. If you don’t use your body, your muscles succumb to atrophy. So, I ask: what happens when you rely on AI? What happens when you give AI every hard problem you come across? Naturally, your cognition suffers. Your ability to reason suffers. Your mind suffers. This is the one thing we cannot afford to give up for convenience's sake. Think about what AI is called: Artificial Intelligence. What an interesting phrase: artificial. It is a substitute for our own intellectual abilities. In other words, you’re sacrificing your ability to think.
“The mind is a terrible thing to waste”
-UNCF slogan
The cost of overusing AI could be catastrophic. This isn’t to say that AI should never be used; it has its benefits when used selectively, but using it in the wrong circumstances can stunt your intellectual development. Menial tasks are a good use of AI; it frees up our cognition to use on harder problems. If you copy and paste your financial data into an AI tool and ask it to break down your expenses, it will give you an instant answer. You’d still be able to do it with some highlighters and a calculator; it would just take you a lot longer. Whereas if you repeatedly use AI to construct ideas for you, your intellectual capability will diminish.
AI is a time-saver, not a cognition-saver.
For cognitively intensive tasks, the steps you must take to get the answer are part of the game. The difficulty of working through a problem is where you acquire knowledge; it’s where you build your intellectual skills and mental fortitude. Instead of getting an immediate answer, you’re required to go through multiple stages of reasoning before coming to a conclusion. There is an epistemic cost to overusing AI.
We’re so focused on the outcome that we forget how much there is to learn along the way. Working through difficult problems is hard. It takes discipline and vigor, and the temptation to outsource is only a few clicks away — one that sometimes must be resisted.
It’s hard to do hard things. But that’s where the growth is found. The resilience you build while enduring onerous tasks translates well into other areas of your life. What you outsource in the name of convenience is what you risk losing. It’s a trade-off that needs to be understood. By all means, use AI to formulate your arguments, but don’t act surprised when you struggle to use your mind in the future.
The process you were so eager to be rid of might be the thing you need the most.
"That happens when you give AI every hard problem you come across? Naturally, your cognition suffers. Your ability to reason suffers. Your mind suffers. This is the one thing we cannot afford to give up for convenience's sake. Think about what AI is called: Artificial Intelligence. What an interesting phrase: artificial. It is a substitute for our own intellectual abilities. In other words, you’re sacrificing your ability to think." Fantastic point. I personally am an information addict. Just meaning that knowledge is sometimes an end onto itself. And for me being able to use my own brain is one thing that makes life meaningful. And as someone whose biggest driver of motivation outside of basic sense pleasure is the pursuit of knowledge or in some way the use of my mind to achieve a goal. Of course the goal may be learning itself. I also realize my imperfections, and realize how valuable a mentor could be (for life generally). At the same time I'm the type to question everything, and I suppose a good teacher would see that as good thing in a student. I don't have any interest in AI as a solution to problems and don't use it really. I also fully admit my desire to not do hard things, but then again I don't ask people to mirror me as the role model. For sure though doing more hard things would be good. And sure most of the things I achieved required a kinds of efforts and hard aspects at some point. Just a few thoughts though.