Mindless (Google’s English dictionary, Oxford Languages)

Acting or done without justification or concern for the consequences

Not thinking of or concerned about

(Of an activity) So simple or repetitive as to be performed automatically without thought or skill

Will artificial intelligence (AI) make us all mindless?

When I was a young boy (an eon ago), there was one hallway in our house that led to every room. On cold winter mornings I’d stand in the middle of that hallway on the north side facing south. I stood on a grate above a gas heater and relished the warmth rising up until I got too hot and was forced to move. Directly opposite the grate on the south side of the hallway was a narrow wooden table. On the table was a thick dictionary encyclopedia sitting open on a wooden stand. Whenever I needed to spell a word or needed information, I would go to this book and look it up. I had learned (through my mother’s refusal to respond to my questions) that this is where the answers were.

Today when my grandson visits on cold winter days, he sits in front of the fireplace to enjoy the warmth. He is glued to his smartphone. He doesn’t bother to ask me when he wants or needs to know something. Like many of us today (even me) he Googles it. The American Dialect Society chose “google” as “the most useful word of 2002.” In 2006 “google” was added to the eleventh edition of the Merriam-Webster collegiate dictionary.

Around 370 B.C., Plato wrote that his teacher Socrates fretted that writing things down would cause humans to become ignorant because they wouldn’t have to memorize anything. (Ironically, the only reason we know this is because it was written down in Plato’s “Phaedrus,” still available today.)

Albert Einstein argued the opposite in 1921. “It is not so very important for a person to learn facts,” the Nobel laureate said, according to his biographer Philipp Frank. “The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.”

Junk food makes us fat. Technology makes us stupid. Maybe. Maybe not. As E.O. Wilson once said: “The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.” Can we glean the benefits of our “godlike technology” without suffering from the evils it portends? “Yes, if we are honest and smart,” says Wilson.

Humans have been using technology for both good and  ill since the first stone tools were invented. Hammers, axes, dynamite, electricity, motor vehicles and the Internet have all been used and abused. Anything new inevitably causes fear for one reason or another and a certain amount of fear is justified. But, to use a well worn cliche, it’s not usually wise to throw out the baby with the bath water. The big concern with today’s new new thing (AI) is that AI in some way represents an existential threat to humanity above and beyond the normal downside that comes with every new invention. This is the “existential risk” that is all over the internet if you’ve been paying attention.

“Digital amnesia” or “the Google effect” is the modern version of Plato’s worry that our smartphones and addiction to social media (not to mention AI) is dumbing us down. Many users of Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram or TikTok admit they are addicted to clicks. At the same time they are aware that this addiction is not altogether healthy. Their online and offline lives are out of sync. Isolation, exhaustion and stress are often the result-the smartphonification of life. Some studies indicate memory abilities can be impaired as a result.

One advantage of modern technology is that we can offload a part of our memory that is routine such as remembering phone numbers, appointments, directions, etc. That can free up memory for other more creative tasks but it can also cause memory atrophy from lack of use. You can only use your memory if you focus. Some research has shown that people who get instant messages can’t remember what they just read. Instant messaging could interrupt the transfer of data from short term memory to long term memory.

Such “digital amnesia” can be reduced by taking tech breaks, turning off instant messaging, and devoting more time to mentally demanding tasks.

One existential concern is that AI could get so much better and faster than humans at producing text, images and ideas that humans become irrelevant. Our capacity to think and create could be upstaged by machines. While we are a long way from that point, it is a possibility even some of the inventors of AI worry about.

Another concern is the so-called “alignment problem,” which could occur if the goals of our machines conflict with our goals and the machines force us into extinction. Today this may be more science fiction than reality but it’s not out of the question.

Other problems posed by technology are not new. They include disinformation, phishing, scams, privacy , polarization and distrust. AI used properly might help us discover and correct these abuses or if used improperly it could magnify them.

According to a recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research “A.I. could raise living standards by more than electricity or the internet. But it may pose risks that exceed those from nuclear weapons. Moreover, these possibilities — however likely or unlikely — are correlated. It is precisely the state of the world in which A.I. could lead to profound increases in living standards that seems most likely to pose existential risk.”

As a caveat it should be mentioned that the term “digital amnesia” was coined not by scientists but by a cybersecurity firm that sells solutions to help protect the information we store digitally. Furthermore, scientific research about the impact of technology use on memory is still new and results vary from study to study.

A resurgence of a different kind of threat posed by technology is the turn toward “techno-fascism” in the new Trump administration. Techno-fascism is defined by historian Janis Mimura in her book Planning For Empire as “authoritarianism driven by technocrats.” Techno-fascist officials “acquire power by creating these supra-ministerial organs and agencies, subgroups within the bureaucracy that are unaccountable.” Today Elon Musk’s DOGE is the Trumpian equivalent. (Techno-Fascism Comes To America, Kayl Chayka The New Yorker, February 26, 2025). Kayl Chayka’s recent article in The New Yorker explains the potential risks in greater detail.

“Be careful what you wish for” should always be on our minds as we navigate the bumpy road to new technology. Assuming, of course, we haven’t already become mindless.