AI Doesn't Make You Smarter
Thinking is not passive. It is cultivated. The people getting the most creative value from AI were not using it to replace their thinking. They were using it to acquire cognitive resources.
Orientation comes before intelligence
The issue is not information. It is orientation. What the mind is aimed at. AI should serve a larger mission, a larger conception of what an organization is actually trying to do in the world.
Metacognition is how posture becomes practice
What does it actually mean to “monitor my thinking”? To interrogate outputs. To notice when I’m outsourcing judgment instead of extending it. Slowing down long enough to ask whether the system is shaping my conclusions.
Friction is the training ground
We don’t learn from performance. We learn from friction. Friction is what trains the brain. AI is full of friction—misfires, shallow answers, hallucinations. These are not failures; they are the training ground.
AI doesn't make people better thinkers. It reveals what kind of thinkers we are becoming.