‘Think outside the bots’: How to stop AI from turning your brain to mush

“What’s happening with AI is that it’s giving us, for the first time, an easy way to trade process for product,” Green says. The essay can sound better. The presentation can look sharper. The retirement party joke can land perfectly. But the mental work, the struggle, the false starts and that moment when something finally clicks is exactly what your brain needs. “It’s like you’re at the gym and a robot lifts the barbell for you,” he says. “You get nothing.”