Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?
From trivial decisions to complex thinking, it is easy, convenient, and in some cases, encouraged, to use AI for researching, reasoning, and answering our every query.I recently read “The Perfect Match” by Ken Liu, a 2012 short story which describes this phenomenon with unexpected accuracy. In the story, a universal AI assistant named Tilly serves users by offering useful and enjoyable recommendations. The main character asks Tilly questions like “What do you recommend I do for breakfast this morning?” and defers to Tilly to find him a suitable person to go on a date with.
- ▪From trivial decisions to complex thinking, it is easy, convenient, and in some cases, encouraged, to use AI for researching, reasoning, and answering our every query.I recently read “The Perfect Match” by Ken Liu, a 2012 short story which
- ▪In the story, a universal AI assistant named Tilly serves users by offering useful and enjoyable recommendations.
- ▪The main character asks Tilly questions like “What do you recommend I do for breakfast this morning?” and defers to Tilly to find him a suitable person to go on a date with.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Are we offloading too much of our thinking to AI?Reflections on autonomy and the value of thinking for ourselvesYennie JunJul 14, 2026ShareMy notes for this essay, written on a plane with no internet and no AI :DI have been observing, in myself and in those around me, a tendency to increasingly offload our thinking to AI. From trivial decisions to complex thinking, it is easy, convenient, and in some cases, encouraged, to use AI for researching, reasoning, and answering our every query.I recently read “The Perfect Match” by Ken Liu, a 2012 short story which describes this phenomenon with unexpected accuracy. In the story, a universal AI assistant named Tilly serves users by offering useful and enjoyable recommendations.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Artfish.
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