Have you taken a good look around our world lately? Pretty messed up, huh?

Our underpinnings seem to be shaking beneath our feet, like being in a spiritual earthquake.

A society so ill at ease with itself.

A few years ago, In an unusually piercing op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, entitled, “The Parkland Massacre and the Air We Breathe,” columnist Peggy Noonan wrote:

“What has happened the past 40 years or so to produce a society so ill at ease with itself, so prone to violence? … We have been swept by social, technological and cultural revolution. The family blew up — divorce, unwed childbearing. Fatherless sons. Fatherless daughters, too. Poor children with no one to love them.

“The internet flourished. Porn proliferated. Drugs, legal and illegal. Violent video games, in which nameless people are eliminated and spattered all over the screen. The abortion regime still remains, with its fierce, endless yet somehow casual talk about the right to end a life.

“An increasingly violent entertainment culture — low, hypersexualized, full of anomie and weirdness, allergic to meaning and depth. The old longing for integration gave way to a culture of accusation — you are a supremacist, a misogynist, you are guilty of privilege and defined by your color and class, we don’t let your sort speak here.”

Noonan concludes, “All this change, compressed into 40 years, has produced some good things, even miraculous ones. But it does not feel accidental that America is experiencing what appears to be a mental-health crisis, especially among the young.”

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported as many as 20% of children 3 to 17 have, in any given year, a mental or emotional illness. There is research indicating depression among teenagers is worsening.”

Now, a New ‘Disease’

In an article published in Psychology Today, headlined, “AI and the Psychology of Cognitive Surrender,” author and innovation theorist John Nosta, writes, “Gradual dependence on AI can lead to a threshold you won’t notice crossing.”

Key points of his article:

• Artificial intelligence subtly erodes our cognitive strength by making delegation seem like self-generated thought.
• After repeatedly turning to AI for answers, the first thing that erodes is tolerance for not knowing.
• True judgment is built by wrestling with uncertainty, not outsourcing discomfort to machines.

“There is a curious type of loss that announces itself only after it’s happened. And it’s something that can sneak up on you. You don’t feel the muscle weakening; you feel the surprise when you need it.

“That’s the problem with cognitive delegation that extends too long and too completely. We’re beginning to understand why AI is seductive. It offers frictionless efficiency, the relief of having AI carry complexity that otherwise would be yours to shoulder. What we haven’t examined carefully enough is what happens next. What happens to the individual who has been regularly offloading chunks of their own thinking for months or years?

“The brain isn’t a library where books sit on shelves until needed. It is a dynamic system shaped by use. Nothing new here, as scientists have long studied processes like habit formation and neuroplasticity. Simply put, the capacities we exercise tend to strengthen, and the capacities we neglect become less accessible over time.”

So where is “the rub” with AI?

First, a point of clarification: Lest there be any misunderstanding about my attitude toward AI, I am very supportive of this sparkling new technology — I use it all the time, including assisting me in writing these Noozhawk essays.

The “rub” comes when people (especially youngsters) stop using AI as a subservient tool to assist them in their own thinking, and start using AI as a repository of ultimate, unchallengeable truth, forgetting that it is a flawed, constantly evolving manmade invention, albeit a very powerful one.

The “rub” comes in when we fail to recognize AI’s demonstrated strengths, and its characteristic weaknesses:

KNOWLEDGE (where AI “shines”)

Knowledge is about facts, data, information, various skills. 

We acquire knowledge through reading, studying, observing and memorizing.

Knowledge can be acquired comparatively quickly.

Knowledge by itself can “puff us up,” producing pride.

WISDOM (where AI can often conflict with the Word of God)

Wisdom is about transformation, judgment, discernment and the ability to use knowledge well. 

We acquire wisdom through experience, reflection, success, failure, insight.

Wisdom requires time, often a lifetime to acquire.

Wisdom frequently produces humility and perspective.

From 1 Corinthians 1:20-21,30:

“Where is the wise person? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe … But it is due to Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written: ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”

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Click here for an artificial intelligence-generated video overview of this essay.