Around 2020, Professor David Raffo noticed a swift and drastic improvement in his students’ writing skills at Portland State University. He quickly realized his hunch was accurate: They were using AI. The tool had improved their writing, but crucially, it hadn’t improved their writing skills. […] compares AI to an elevator, and cognitive problem-solving (like solving a physics problem by hand) to a stairmaster machine. The elevator will get you to your destination faster, but the stairmaster will make your mind stronger and more agile. - TMN#358
Tech: The (past) war on artificial ice. Dissent. 3210s sold out.
People: US at Stage 5 in a disorder cycle. Aging and eldercare. Changes from CVs.
AI: Making us dumb? AI is a mind elevator (non a positive thing). Redefining B2B as a new mess of Brand-to-Bot, Bot-to-Brand, and Bot-to-Bot. Tech intimacy - and AI friends. Top red-teamer.
Rabbit hole: Increasing sick leave since 2019 (FR). Information fatigue.
The Disconnect Dilemma
Marcel had never considered himself a technophobe, yet as he scrolled through his news feed that fateful Tuesday, he felt as if his brain were trying to process a blender worth of confusion lodged in a microwave. *If that doesn’t sound like a well-organized mess, I don’t know what does*^1. Around him, the local café buzzed with an array of hyperconnected souls, all glued to their screens as though waiting for the arrival of a messianic notification to deliver them from information fatigue—a curiously common ailment, as it turned out, afflicting 53% of his fellow citizens^2.
Each tap and swipe seemed to unearth a new convolution of reality. Just the other day, he had read an article—paradoxically enlightening yet concerning—about how their reliance on the shiny allure of AI was akin to using an elevator instead of a stairmaster. The more they leaned on these metallic muses, it crudely suggested, the flabbier their cognitive muscles would get^3. Perhaps, he mused, while sipping his latte—if cognitive curiosity were a sport, he’d surely be benched for the season.
To stave off the bleak forecast of cognitive atrophy, he had taken to scribbling absurd self-written short stories, inexplicably giving life to characters that were just as sensibly insane as he'd hoped to be. This morning, he populated his thoughts with nonchalant robots that served coffee, debating philosophical quandaries about whether they were, in fact, sentient or just meticulously programmed to avoid existential crises overladen with algorithmic complacency^4.
Amidst his musings, a figure entered the café: a man clutching a bulky, retro Nokia 3210. Marcel blinked in disbelief—was 1999 still making a comeback? The phone seemed advertising itself in a kitschy waltz with nostalgia, cozying up to the notion that perhaps simpler times were not so simple after all^5. The odd juxtaposition struck him. In a world that perpetually screamed of the latest innovations—where even B2B marketing was shifting to divide between Brands and Bots—here was a player refusing to let the game change^6. Could you imagine a bot-pitched firmware deal for *that* beauty?
As the man ambled forth, he overheard a heated discussion about something as mundane as lunch options—should they dare to ingest lab-grown meat, despite the whispers of resistance echoing through the internet's back alleys? Like a specter from a nostalgic past, the artificial elements brought forth quite the debate, reminiscent of times when people battled over ice itself^7. It seemed as if innovation was a stubborn commodity, and there would always be those fighting the tide of what was considered ‘unnatural,’ whatever that meant^8.
“Maybe,” he blurted out, surprising himself, “we should just accept dissent more openly, like those old-school phone lines keeping us connected amid absurd conspiracy theories.” It was a lazy attempt to veer the conversation, and he had no idea who was in charge of wielding that particular verbal sword. But as heads turned, he sensed the room’s discomfort dance with a reluctant agreement. Form-a-tion, of sorts, in a world that too often favored groupthink over individual kernels of insight. Why shouldn’t it be okay to be skittish specially, with everything feeling so brittle and non-linear these days?^9.
One by one, Marcel’s fellow patrons elaborated their thoughts, their words morphing from questions of mundane lunch choices to implications of our modern dilemmas. A lively debate spun on like a merry-go-round, dragging in all from hyperconnected best friends to the donned skeptics reeling from the waves of information overload. Was that a sigh of relief Marcel detected in the air? Perhaps messages and debates were not in agency hiding behind machines, but rather singing through humans rediscovering their musculoskeletal effect on the world around them.
They could let the robots carry the weight of daily trifles, but they’d also need to reclaim the joy of simple ponderings—the kind that, like that old Nokia, could keep them connected without over-relying on screens or algorithms. A bit of dissent to nourish the mind, like a balanced diet amongst constant fast-food information. Now that seemed like a future worth writing about.
^1 Which would be completely normal if only the blender made sense, but alas, *no*.
^2 I mean, what can be more exhausting than hunting for a genuine news state amidst a minefield of meme-laden madness?
^3 That’s the trick, though—nobody really wants a flabby brain. Just look at the number of hit articles titled "How to Get Your Brain in Shape" on the internet.
^4 Quick reminder: approaching AI with caution is like smiling politely at the friendly lion in the zoo.
^5 You could almost hear the dial-up internet tones in its call; oh, sweet irony how history folds back upon itself!
^6 Not that anyone *would* dare, much less be able to follow the rabbit hole of B2B Bot parlance.
^7 Funny how fights over artificial meat are as epic as the first gourmet ice-cream truck wars.
^8 Because we all know ‘modern’ means new and ‘natural’ means whatever twinkles prettily.
^9 Who knew embracing the incoherence of B.A.N.I would not create more anxiety but rather a reprieve from it?