Uniformity

The more we rely on AI tools, the more generic our output becomes. The less we are forced to shape our own thoughts, the more uniform we grow. But the problem is not just that everything starts to look and sound and feel the same (although that is an issue on yet another level). It is cognitive deskilling. Thinking is not simply having thoughts, but is a practice. We learn to think by struggling to articulate what we mean, by sitting with uncertainty, finding words that do not quite fit yet, changing our minds halfway through a sentence, developing an argument, discovering contradictions, and eventually arriving at something that is actually ours.

When we routinely outsource that struggle, we do not just outsource the production of text, but also outsource parts of the process through which we develop judgment, voice, and dissent. Unfortunately, skills we stop practicing tend to deteriorate. The result is not merely more generic writing, but is people becoming less practiced at forming their own thoughts, finding their own language, preserving their quirks, articulating disagreement, and resisting the frameworks handed to them.

There is also a political component to it: People who struggle to articulate what they think also struggle to articulate why something is wrong. People who lose confidence in their own judgment become more dependent on systems that offer to do the judging for them. And people whose language becomes increasingly standardized become easier to categorize, predict, and manage. Uniformity, then, is not merely an aesthetic side effect of AI. Cognitive deskilling is not merely a productivity trade-off. Both are politically convenient for the ruling class.