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

For Krishnamurti, AI demands a fresh look at intelligence itself. If we agree that true intelligence can’t be mechanical, then maybe it’s time to define intelligence as something beyond what any computer could imitate or simulate.

While we’re busy wondering whether machines will ever become conscious, we rarely stop to ask: What happens to us? How does it change us when we realize that even today’s mind-mimicking “weak AI” can already take over cognitive tasks and abilities we once thought were exclusively human?

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

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?

Instead of asking whether machines will ever become conscious, we might ask whether humans can become conscious enough to outgrow the “artificial intelligence” both inside them and in the machines around them.

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

Krishnamurti turns Alan Turing’s famous ‘imitation game’ on its head. In his 1950 paper, Turing proposed a thought experiment to see whether a machine could mimic human verbal behavior by responding meaningfully to whatever is asked. Picture it: a woman and a computer, each hidden away in separate rooms, while a human judge, unaware of who’s where,

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

If our minds can be recreated by a machine, then maybe our thinking is more robotic than we’d like to admit. And that’s a reality that shakes us right down to our human core.