Realizing AI can make us dumber. So what now?

From Afternoons, 3:10 pm on 12 August 2025

Wall Street Journal tech reporter Sam Schechner says he first suspected artificial intelligence was eating his brain when he used ChatGPT to help write an email to his son's basketball coach. He lives in Paris, and speaks fluent French, but Schechner started asking AI for help with emails, summarizing legal documents, even texting friends. Soon French words didn't come as easily when effort was optional and mental concentration was offloaded to AI. He writes about his experience in a piece for The Wall Street Journal titled How I Realized AI Was Making Me Stupid-and What I Do Now.