The Mechanized Mind: AI’s Hidden Impact on Human Thought

Discussions about how AI might influence our ability to live the good life and experience personal fulfillment are just beginning to take baby steps. AI ethics has expanded beyond simply figuring out how to use these technologies in moral or valuable ways. Yet, even these emerging conversations often miss the bigger picture, focusing mostly on whet

The year 1980 was a turning point for the philosophy of artificial intelligence, even while AI itself was still finding its feet. Philosopher John Searle introduced his now-famous Chinese Room thought experiment, arguing that machines could produce impressive results without a shred of genuine understanding.

The first crucial step toward cultivating a truly intelligent mind — and moving away from the automated thinking of machines — is to engage in what philosophers call “second-order cognition” or reflective self-awareness, recognizing the mind’s programmed patterns. Fortunately, the mind and mechanical thought aren’t the same, which means we have the

As smart machines and robots take over more of our thinking, the brain risks becoming lazy, unstimulated, and, frankly, bored. In a world where work and struggle are things of the past, our experiences might dwindle to nothing more than a search for entertainment and pleasure — a cycle of reacting to one shiny distraction after another. When we hit

In an AI-ruled world, any human ability we neglect will start to shrivel up.

Krishnamurti also questioned whether thought, in its inherently mechanical nature, could ever produce real intelligence. After all, if our thinking operates like a machine, can it truly be called intelligent?

Resist the lure of the entertained mind and keep your mental gears turning by diving into the “vast recesses of one’s being.”

Krishnamurti didn’t see intelligent machines as some strange, rival species ready to replace us. To him, machines were just an extension of the human mind — a brain built in our own image, with human and artificial thought as mirror reflections. When you think about it, AI developers aren’t pulling ideas out of thin air; they’re crafting AI based o

To him, meeting it meant doing everything we could to make our minds different from artificial intelligence — a call to rise above the routines that risk turning us into reflections of our own machines.