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How GenAI is Forcing an Inevitable Ability/Efficiency Trade-Off

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AI has permeated higher education, and it’s here to stay, which will bring about irrevocable, though not necessarily negative, change.  

While AI raises plenty of unanswered questions, one certainty is that specific human abilities are about to be forfeited en masse in exchange for some efficiency.  

The education world is at a crucial crossroads. The advent of GenAI seems to have occurred only a moment ago, yet the movement has already produced a crisis in higher education, a meltdown in at least one K12 district and significant ongoing disruption in the ed tech space that few firms are truly prepared to grapple with. This innovation is just too new and moving too fast.  

Throughout the halls of academia, the prevalence of pearl clutching has significantly increased, while student usage of GenAI (including for cheating) has been dramatically outpacing usage by the faculty.  

All that to say, the question looming over all of us remains: What does the future hold?  

The unsettling truth is that we don’t know.  

This uncertainty—the known unknowns and, to quote former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the unknown unknowns—makes the rise of AI both deeply unsettling and potentially thrilling.  

In particular, there is a prevalent concern among my academic colleagues that student use of GenAI will produce cognitive atrophy—the reality that delegating work to a machine will, for most students, undermine the core function of academic rigor: to produce gains in their human competence.  

I freely admit that academic atrophy of certain human abilities in the era of GenAI is inevitable, yet I don’t share my colleagues’ sense of concern. Here’s why:  

This is not the first time that human abilities have been widely forfeited in exchange for some efficiency.  

As Vaughan Bell documented in an article for Slate, the tendency for older generations to doomsay about rapid technological proliferation is practically tradition, even among some of humanity’s most well-respected minds. Bell writes that even “Socrates famously warned against writing because it would ‘create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories.’”  

We are all familiar with a more recent example: When pocket calculators were first introduced, critics lamented that kids would lose their ability to do complex math.  

Such anxieties about calculators seem quaint 60 years in retrospect, but few can argue that a real loss has actually occurred, as the ability for mental arithmetic in the average human being is probably not as sharp now as it was before. However, here we are, a generation later and the Fields Medal (a kind of Nobel Prize for Mathematics) is still being given out regularly. Indeed, the mental energy once spent mastering arithmetic is now often redirected to skills more relevant to today’s technological and scientific challenges such as coding, data analysis or working out the finer points of quantum computing.  

While perennial skepticism for every next big thing seems inevitable, history also shows us that, when confronted with transformative technology, humans actually adapt, innovate and ultimately thrive, despite an obvious loss of associated human abilities. Here are a few cardinal examples:  

The Typewriter & the Depletion of Reflective Writing  

When the typewriter first debuted, writers like Friedrich Nietzsche argued that handwritten text had an irreplaceable quality—a reflective depth that typewritten text simply could not replicate. Forced to switch to a typewriter as his eyesight failed him, Nietzsche observed with frustration that his writing style had actually depreciated as a result. He remarked that the mechanical nature of typing seemed to influence the rhythm and content of his thoughts, making his prose more abrupt and abridged. He argued that writing by hand allowed ideas to flow more thoughtfully, while typing was comparatively “impersonal … It deprives the piece of work of its pride, of the individual goodness and faultiness … that is to say, of its little bit of humanity.” 

Looking back, many of us might readily agree that pre-typewritten texts do feel more contemplative and carefully crafted, denser and more reflective, but no one today really cares enough to go back to writing prose by hand (barring some few). Typing is faster, more efficient and ultimately more practical. The convenience outweighs the perceived loss. In other words, this is not the first time that human abilities have been forfeited en masse in exchange for some efficiency (all while most of us don’t seem to notice or care).  

The Phonograph and the Elimination of the Vocal Cord in the Common Citizen  

Following the proliferation of the phonograph, Congress determined the technology was of special interest and requested testimony from John Philip Sousa—former head of the United States Marine Band and famed composer of “Stars and Stripes Forever”—about the potential harm of these newly available “talking machines.” In his testimony, which proved prophetic, Sousa passionately mourned the loss of a world where the only way humans could experience music was to produce it themselves—live.  

“These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy … in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day… We will not have a vocal cord left.” (John Philip Sousa, Testimony Before U.S. Congress, 1906.) 

His prediction was eerily accurate. Today, most of us rely on streaming services and professional artists to produce our musical experiences, and fewer people than ever sing or play instruments for personal enjoyment. My parents (b. 1940/1941) confirm that in their youth (when the phonograph and radio were still not yet present in every home), people really would sit on their porches in the evenings and sing. For my part (b. 1985), I have no single memory of any neighbor sitting outside in the evenings to sing the songs of the era. Sousa’s prediction came true.  

While I believe most of us can see this as a genuine loss, I don’t know anyone who is about to give up on Spotify and jaunt out to their porch to belt out their favorite tunes. Our new normal is just too aesthetically efficient compared to the former status quo. In other words, this is not the first time that human abilities have been forfeited en masse in exchange for some efficiency, even if the loss can be appreciated as significant.  

AI and the Loss of Certain Human Abilities 

So, what’s the lesson for AI? Student use of GenAI in the academy will create deficits—no question—in writing, in research acumen, in spending time perusing the library stacks. Students’ lives will be fundamentally different from previous generations’ because GenAI use will produce academic atrophy—very specific losses in their abilities. Unusually, it will also produce very specific gains in new abilities that will become critical to society’s emerging needs, and that trade-off is meaningful.  

If the pattern of history holds, our next generation will not care enough to give up the new efficiencies to preserve what’s being lost. In other words, Pandora’s box has already been opened. As one very thoughtful student put it during a recent NYU symposium on the topic: “It’s not like AI is a secret. Everyone I know is using it. And that’s not something you can stop.” Put differently, this movement is not simply a technological revolution; it has already become a cultural phenomenon as well.  

AI will irrevocably alter human capacities and experiences for worse and better. Our challenge is not to lament its use and the associated losses but to work proactively to help educators integrate it wisely, preserving what matters while capitalizing on the potential gains and new possibilities.  

Some of the previous generations’ most cherished abilities will fade in the rising generation as they delegate certain tasks to the technology, but history has shown that humans are remarkable in their ability to thrive in new contexts, using new tools to produce new abilities. As our students lose certain cognitive practices, they will also gain new ones—essential abilities that we cannot even envision, let alone name at this early stage—and the essence of what makes us human, the drive to learn, create and connect—will endure.  

Rather than fearing the loss of specific abilities, our time would be better spent on embracing the change and redirecting our energy to make the transition fantastic for students and educators alike. For example, there are still a number of issues that need to be engaged with and culturally resolved to stabilize the immediate future: combating implicit bias in GenAI systems, resolving AI’s sustainability crisis, enacting laws that prohibit misuse of GenAI (by both providers and users), and regulating the release of improperly configured AI models, just to name a few. Efforts like these will require us to remain engaged, curious, and mindful, irrespective of how amenable we can be to the fact that this technology will shift our paradigms about which human capabilities are truly essential.

Ultimately, the pattern of innovation has been consistent and clear. Humanity meets technological revolution with skepticism, followed by an inevitable loss in certain cherished abilities and an ultimate embrace of the efficiency created within the new normal.  

AI will bring some losses, yes, but history shows we’re more than capable of adapting and thriving on new terms. This is not the first time that human abilities have been forfeited en masse in exchange for some efficiency.  

The questions that remain are: How will we mindfully navigate the transition? And perhaps more provocatively: How much will our children even notice or care about the inevitable losses, given how convenient they’ll find the new efficiencies? 

 

Author’s note: I’m a career educator, a university executive and a champion of the liberal arts tradition. I believe that a broadly and deeply educated society is one that thrives by upholding democratic equality, social mobility and economic efficiency. The world is a better place when it is full of citizen scholars the rigors of the academy have produced.  

I’m also an AI advocate—a daily user in both my professional and personal life. Because I have seen the obvious efficiencies, I actively encourage faculty and students to adopt GenAI in meaningful ways. I believe that integrating GenAI into teaching experiences isn’t just necessary but inevitable.