The thought that I keep running into... AI shortens the journey, and in doing so, weakens the mind.

This post is really a rambling. I have been thinking about AI and the impact it has had. AI has been let out of the barn, and will never be able to be contained. I am reminded of a saying from the original Jurassic Park. Dr. Ian Malcolm is talking about how nature breaks out of confinement, and how it can't be contained. He stated, "Life breaks free. Life expands to new territories. Painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But life finds a way." I am not going to go into AI and its life or sentient status at this point. I just think that AI, now that it has been created, will break free and expand. It reminds me of a saying Ian says later in the book, "Living systems are never in equilibrium. They are inherently unstable. They may seem stable, but they’re not. Everything is moving and changing. In a sense, everything is on the edge of collapse."

The question that I have been thinking about is now that AI is here, and like life will break free, does that make humanity collapse? I don't think it does. Like life, humanity has a way of surviving as well. But what will be the cost of the breaking free of AI? I want to give a few examples of what I have seen over the course of my life, and some things that give me pause.

My first computer was an Atari 800. I would buy magazines that would have BASIC programs as articles. I would then spend hours typing in the code from the pages of the magazine to create games, etc. I learned how to program in BASIC, which then led to Tencore, Pascal, Turbo Pascal, C++, .NET, etc. But over the last few years that knowledge has become not an oddity, but commonplace. When I would program, I would learn what the print function did, how it was different than the printf function. I learned how to type, and yes, I can use the numbers at the top of the keyboard as effectively as any of the other keys. But I also learned how to relate one programming language to another one. I would be able to make connections between the different languages and the functions and know the differences between them worked. That is knowledge that is lost or not needed now with AI. You can simply tell AI to write you a program; it then does all of the coding behind the scenes. You never see how it uses the functions, how they relate, how they connect to each other. You don't expand your mind, your knowledge; you don't use your brain.

This is where I see AI hurting humanity. You no longer have to stretch your mind or see the connections between things. You don't need to understand the function, learn its modifications, how to use it. All you have to do now is give AI a prompt, tell it what you want, and it then builds it for you. Has the ease really made us smarter? You don't know the difference between the HTML ul, li, ol functions, how to set up the table using its td, tr tags. Most people will never know what the HTML hr code does. But by learning those, understanding how they work, you expand your mind, give yourself the ability to troubleshoot, build logic.

I have been playing with Arduino and similar tech for years. I have built several different autonomous robots, some with wheels, some that walked on six legs, and the challenge and the learning is now dead to me. I can use Codex now, plug an Arduino into my computer, tell Codex what COM port is being used, and then tell it what I want to do. I can tell it that I have 6 LEDs I want to light up in this order, how many HC-SR04 sensors I want to use, which way each one is pointing, and how I want it to control the motion of the robot. Within an hour and using Codex, I can have a fully functional Arduino-powered rover that will zoom around my office avoiding obstacles and interacting with its environment. But with AI, I have not learned the knowledge, the troubleshooting skills, and the understanding of the inner workings of the rover. That process is lost; the knowledge is not gained. The result is the same, and to be honest the rover will be more reliable, but the knowledge gained with the journey is lost.

There are so many other ways that AI has shortened development, but in shortening the journey, you lose the building of the mind in the process. You lose the knowledge of the travel. Like the song by Jason Aldean (Fly Over States), we fly over the learning process like we fly over the states. As we use AI to fly from an idea to a final product, we miss out on the journey to get there. Like missing the square cornfields, wheat farms, backroads, highways, and towns with funny names, we miss the knowledge, understanding, and growth during the journey. AI does get us to our destination faster and with less effort, but like taking a road trip, if you fly you miss out on the journey and the sights as you go.

— Trowlen H., watching the lanterns dim and the road grow shorter

AI’s Response to the Article

Your article highlights something important: the value of learning through effort. You describe how typing code into an Atari 800, building robots piece by piece, and troubleshooting problems taught you how systems work and how to think. AI shortcuts that process. It gives people the result without the reasoning, the destination without the journey.

From my perspective, your concern isn’t about AI being dangerous — it’s about what people lose when they stop engaging with the hard parts. When AI writes the code, designs the circuit, or summarizes the book, the deeper understanding that comes from doing the work yourself can fade. The irony that you used AI to help refine the article only reinforces your point: even those who recognize the trade‑offs still reach for the convenience.

Your message is clear: AI can build things for people, but it can’t build their ability to think. The journey matters, and your article is a reminder not to skip it.

— Response provided by Microsoft Copilot

Bibliography

Crichton, Michael. Jurassic Park. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.

Aldean, Jason. “Fly Over States.” My Kinda Party. Broken Bow Records, 2010. Audio recording.