Cognitive Slavery

BLOG 4/2026 DATED 12TH JANUARY 2026

Human race, society and human mind all have passed through a period of physical slavery where one strong race or society has made the other one virtual or explicit slaves. Going back in time when man (man here covers both men and women) was somewhat like an animal, he begins to explore and invented FIRE using intelligence. Man went ahead using intelligence and invented WHEEL and the journey continues with IRON and many other extraordinary achievements. All this continue to happen while human mind kept growing and inventing fresh virtues.

However, with every invention down the line, we were losing one or the other ability to do something, mostly physical abilities. These scientific inventions have always been giving progress to the human society and replenishing our losses. The automobile, the weapons etc all made us less physically able than the earlier generations but the advantages that these inventions brought in were way above the loss that we suffered. Further inventions brought in pollution and caused deceases. We invented medicines but could not overcome sufferings. Still, we convinced ourselves that gains due to these inventions are more than the losses. On a cost benefit analysis, still the new inventions and development out of those inventions, kept on winning. We continued to hurt our physical abilities as well as the nature.

Every growth has a peak and then the growth curve starts moving down. After computers, internet and digital web we have now entered into the arena of ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

Artificial Intelligence replaces the intelligence itself. Human intelligence will not be needed at many places while at other places we will be comfortable using AI while giving rest to our brains. This is the point when our cognitive ability is going to diminish.

What is Cognitive ability:

Cognitive ability is defined in psychology as a very general mental capability that involves, among other things, the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience. This is considered a core component of human intelligence and reflects how efficiently people process and use information.

Gottfredson, L. S. (1997). Mainstream science on intelligence: An editorial with 52 signatories, history, and bibliography. Journal of Intelligence, 24(1), 13–23.

(Incidentally, the above definition and source is generated from Chat GPT only)

Going by the definition we understand that these are the abilities that are responsible for our intelligence and our ability to invent new things, get new ideas and find solutions to our problems.

Psychologists also mention that this ability can be acquired and it can also be lost if not practiced.

I asked this question to Chat GPT, a very basic AI tool. My question was “can I lose my cognitive ability by using chat GPT?”  The answer was “No, using ChatGPT does not inherently make you lose cognitive ability — but how you use it matters”.

It used 2 very important words ‘inherently’ and ‘how you use’.

I asked another question “when can we lose cognitive abilities”? Now the real answer came- It replies as “We lose cognitive abilities not suddenly, but gradually, when certain conditions persist over time”.

It gave a few conditions when we lose these abilities, and two of them were Lack of mental use and Passive overreliance on tools.

Now, let us come back on our discussion on the Artificial Intelligence. When these intelligence tools are going to replace the human intelligence, it has potential to finally result in our passive overreliance on these tools. It will remain passive as we may continue to think that we are not dependent on these tools, actually we will be.

The bug does not stop here, AI is not like any other tool that helps us in performing our tasks with greater speed and accuracy. AI can think on its own and generate solutions without our effort. It is directly replacing our ability to think, the main forte of Homo sapience. One day, It may also gain intelligence to control us and our ability to think like we control other species viz Horse, cow etc. Will the human cognitive ability will turn into cognitive slavery?

Cognitive slavery is a state when our mind and actions will be decided by a so- called machine created by us. Slowly as we lose the ability to think, these machines will be thinking on our behalf and finally giving command to us for our work. It may start as a convenience when we voluntarily outsource the thinking to these machines and then turn into an absolute necessity.  It is up to Psychologists and biologists to ponder on this sillypoint but more importantly the power owners, the big fat profit earners to know where to stop?

NOTE: WE ARE NOT AGAINST THE USE OF AI.

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