Critical Thinking in Age of AI

I have been thinking a lot about AI and how the world is going to change with more and more powerful AI. The one topic that keeps coming up in this is Critical Thinking. In my opinion, the most valuable skill in the world of AI is Critical Thinking. It will be critical for us to find ways to develop and preserve this skill set. At the high end, critical thinking will be how high-performing employees deliver value. Outside of the workplace, critical thinking is and will continue to be critical for a functioning democracy.

I worry greatly that AI and today's social media-driven world are causing a mass atrophy of critical thinking skills. To test this, we must first define critical thinking. For me, critical thinking is the ability to inspect and analyze an idea from first principles while acknowledging any cognative bias's that might exist. One critical piece is the ability to apply those principles consistently, regardless of whether they support your position. In politics, we see both sides of the aisle changing their tune on key issues (e.g., the Senate Filibuster) depending on which party is in power. On social media, we see biases reinforced, most notably repeated statements that exploit the illusory truth effect, leading listeners to perceive them as true.

AI is only going to make this worse with its ability to be confidently wrong and produce results that are convincing and often correct. We must find ways to develop critical thinking in our AI tools, as individuals and as a society. I don't know what these are yet, but it is something I am thinking about.