Published in 1970 by Alvin Toffler Future shocka book that raises a troubling question. We wondered what happens when the pace of change and the exponential increase in information exceeds our psychological capacity to adapt. The answer is intuitive: the mind cannot adjust to this rhythm; reduce completeness and relax your heuristics. In 1963, Neil Postman literally spoke of “social paralysis caused by rapid technological change”. 63 years later we live in X “usted está here”.
Critical thinking is not possible and requires excessive costs: consume executive courses and the brain tends to arouse them. Kahneman — the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist for economics — summed it up Thinking depressed, thinking despacio: fast thinking dominates because it is efficient, slow thinking is abandoned because it is costly. The digital ecosystem refutes this inertia: slow thinking is not in the name or what TikTok endures.
In the late 1990s – and Tik-Tok was just the name of a social robot that learned to think – the study of artificial intelligence included work with classical neural networks, unsupervised learning and self-organizing Kohonen maps (yes, that’s the guy’s name). These were deliberately limited systems designed to identify specific areas, how to classify or group them. While it doesn’t seem like we had a real idea, it was fascinating that a machine based on weight assignment was making a medical diagnosis or differentiating a price from a table. We imagined her potential as a future human assistant.
Indeed, the psychology of decision-making saw this as a human problem. The central thesis of the work of Kahneman and Tversky – disseminated in Spain by his student Orfelio León, with whom you can study at UAM – should be uncomfortable and valid: intelligence is not safe against certain errors, only the least visible ones. Rational and logical are not the same thing.
Current artificial intelligence confuses us expressive fluencywhich conditions our critical truth. When an answer appears well-written and convincing, it changes our verification process. I can’t go back to AI exactly until I’m in the habit of delegating juice, which convinced us in the Chronic cognitive defaulters.
New AI, always the same
Recent empirical evidence shows that actual LLM models siguen replicando sesgos cognitives humanos. Experimental studies have shown anclaje effects in generative models: initial information on call conditions the answer including the presence of conflicting data. Also if you observe a I’m looking for confirmationFor which models reflect the user’s implicit thesis, whether the requirements are explicitly conflicting. This behavior derives from optimizing the coherence and fluency of the conversation, as reported by research Anthropic – a company founded by former OpenAI members – and its own OpenAI. Variables such as race, gender, and social class continue to influence outcomes.
El I’m talking about setting (framing) It’s particularly gory: the way the problem is presented – as a loss or as a jaw – systematically changes the response the AI offers, just as it does with humans. This means that the hardware is not limited to information processing, but vice versa conditions from the beginning mark the decision. The neutrality of these systems remains questionable.
Disinformation as a non-genetic replicator
The famous MIT study published in it Science In 2018, it became clear that fake news is spreading faster. The reason is cognitive: paparazzi are usually simpler, more emotional and easier to process. In the environment information overloadthe cognitively impaired person gains an adaptive window in front of complete truths that require verification. This is reminiscent of what Richard Dawkins formulated in it The selfish gene hace medium siglo: British biologist bautizó and los memes as new non-genetic replicators which spread by their ability to adapt to the information ecosystem, not by adapting to reality. Another warming prophecy.
For years I have had a teacher repeat this regularly: brilliant and tech-savvy students have increasing difficulty supporting broad thinking, uncovering implicit or ambiguous mind-sets without looking at Google or ChatGPT. As long as a reverse Flynn effect can be expected, the blame lies with him a society that actively discourages and wastes cognitive effort. We can work indefinitely without using critical thinking and accepting the possible associated costs.
Critical thinking as a discipline
Because critical thinking occurs less often, the only solution is teach it in a context where there is no escape from thinking depressive. As in sports, the best practices are among the most popular: learning idioms, public speaking improvised, euro gamesvideo games like Curse of the Golden Idolescape rooms, academic writing or demanding reading. Reading books on any subject is essential: science fiction, poetry, science fiction, or even astrology (!), as popularizer Neil deGrasse Tyson advises. Open your mind to the critical discrimination of the world.
Some of the most effective practices are based on full narrative simulation. Some contemporary role-playing games – based on the Stranger Things stereotype – act as excellent laboratories without finding out: Town and city (Walhalla Ediciones), a prometedora inspired by China Miéville’s fascinating novel; Robotta – Humanidad Perdida (Shadowlands) explores conflict and emotion from now onother robotic; First wine (Devir) faces moral dilemmas in the Berlin March of 1942; and a spectacular campaign Horror on the Orient Express (Edge Studio) takes us into a hyper-complex environment of decisions and mysteries on board the most famous train of all time. Not for nothing, commercial role-playing games are living in the greatest moment in history, partly because of this they benefit from gaining all types of abilities.
Good thinking cansa mucho
The problem was never the technology. Not in 1970, not in the twentieth century, not now. In particular, our real hope for survival is based on avoiding the temptation to use automatic systems for everything (another cognitive process) and turning to a slow but refreshing path.
As a teenager, I came across a good Zen parable that inspired me. They sold it to me as an ancient, thousand-year-old gift. The teacher instructs his student to ask what will happen for a month. The student turns and cries out in despair, “I can’t live like this!” The teacher said to her, “Okay. Now is the time to live.”
They poured it for me. The simile turned out to be an invention of the XX century.
The message made it clear to me: Can’t think about it, but the alternative is much more expensive.
*** Miguel Angel Talha de la Cruz He is the creative director of Despertolia and a professor at the IMMUNE Technology Institute.
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