How to Stop AI from Killing Your Critical Thinking | Advait Sarkar | TED

I'm here today to talk about thinking for yourself. And I must admit, I did use AI to help me think about it. (Laughter) The irony is not lost on me. But the way I did so is not by using AI as an assistant to help me prepare this talk faster. Rather, I use AI as a tool for thought.

And by the end of this talk, I will have explained what I mean by that, why it's important, and given you a glimpse of how it might work. But first I need to set the scene. Let's look at a day in the life of a 21st-century knowledge worker. I arrive at my office and look at my inbox full of emails.

Oh. Let's summarize it. OK, I'm struggling to figure out how to respond here, so let's get AI to write a response. Next, I need to write a report. But I'm struck by the blank-page problem. I know, I'll drop in some resources and get an AI draft. Looks good to me. By the way, a writer's block used to be staring at a blank page.

Now it's staring at a page that AI filled out for me and wondering if I agree with it. I've become a professional validator of a robot's opinions. (Laughter) I've got some data to analyze. Maybe AI can analyze this data for me. Probably correct. OK, I've got to make a deck as well. You know the drill.

Alright. Oh, I was supposed to prototype something as well. OK, let me vibe code something. Alright, all this looks good, let's go. This isn't a vision of the future. This is a completely plausible, if slightly exaggerated, picture of the world of knowledge work today. Welcome to the age of outsourced reason. Where the knowledge worker no longer engages with the materials of their craft.

We've become intellectual tourists. In our own work, we visit ideas. We don't inhabit them. Our relationship to our work is entirely intermediated by AI. Some might say alienated. We've heard that story before. What's wrong with this picture? For one thing, it's only one step removed from this, which is important. But that's a different talk.