AI Made Me Dumb. So I Stopped Using AI… the Wrong Way.
What happens when AI stops being a tool for thinking and starts replacing thinking?
I noticed it first in small ways. I would reach for a model before I had properly defined the problem. I would accept a first draft because it sounded confident. I would skip the step where I explain the idea to myself in plain language.
That is the wrong way to use AI — not because the tool is bad, but because I was using it to avoid the work that makes me better.
The cost of skipping thinking
When production becomes cheap, the temptation is to move faster than your judgment can follow. The output looks finished before the reasoning is finished.
I am not against speed. I am against speed without ownership. If I cannot explain why something is true, I should not ship it just because a model said it well.
What I changed
Now I use AI after I have done the hard part: naming the problem, writing a rough version myself, and deciding what “good” would look like. The tool helps me iterate, challenge assumptions, and explore alternatives — but the thinking stays mine.
That shift did not make me slower in the ways that matter. It made the work more mine.