Cognitive Overload

A note to my students today:

In the early days of the Internet - I'm old enough to remember life before Internet - New York University professor Clay Shirky wrote a few forward-thinking books about the good he saw the Internet creating. One of the books, "Cognitive Surplus," focused on people and institutions saw using their free time and intellect to create useful tools on the Internet.

He's now Vice Provost for AI and Technology in Education at NYU and might be thinking of writing a follow-up to his book, called "Cognitive Overload."

I have no idea if he's got such a book in the offing. But when I read "Your AI Use is Breaking My Brain," by Justin Koebler at the 404 media website, I felt the pain Koebler expressed in decrying the cognitive overload he's feeling in trying to sort artificial intelligence from human intelligence on the Internet.

Koebler - an Internet-based journalist - penned this as the closing of the linked article, and I think it's apt to my experience as of late on the Internet:

"What’s driving me crazy, then, is not the idea that AI exists or that people are using AI. It’s that I have a finite time on this earth that I mostly want to spend interacting with other human beings. I don’t want to be the person arguing with a robot, or wasting my time reading something that a real person couldn’t be bothered to write."

You'll have to surrender your email address to the website if you want to read the article, but it's otherwise free (since your email is the price you pay).

I bring this up not because I'm seeing a lot of AI use in class, but because I thought it was interesting. I'm feeling the fatigue Koebler expresses in trying to sort fact from fiction on the Internet, something that has been increasingly taxing over the last few decades, not just because of the advent of AI.

For any of you writing on AI use for your bibliography and final assignment, I'd highly consider using this article as one of your sources.