AI Cannot Think For You

Summary

The article argues that AI can perform work or make decisions for people, but it cannot experience the process on their behalf. Outsourcing a task may deliver an efficient result while removing the learning, discoveries, and understanding gained through doing the work. The author uses examples from cooking and mathematics to argue that automation changes the bottleneck rather than eliminating the need for knowledge: people still need to understand how methods work, when to use them, and why. As AI becomes better at deciding, people may delegate tasks they care less about, making it more important to identify what they actually value. Subject expertise and personal purpose provide that direction; without them, AI use can produce busywork and poor-quality output rather than meaningful progress.