The AI Innovation Paradox -- Coming From a 17 y/o
opinions from a teenager
What if I told you one of society's greatest innovation led to society's greatest downfall?
The AI wave has fundamentally shifted how we work, communicate, and live. But here's what nobody talks about: the magnitude of AI's risk matches the magnitude of its promise.
The problem isn't the technology itself - it's that we don't understand its strengths and weaknesses, and we're not leveraging what makes us uniquely human: judgment, taste, and our ability to handle the unknown.
Let me explain: every innovation exists for one reason: to solve problems - that's the whole point. But I believe there are two types of “innovation”:
“Regular innovation,” solves specific problems for specific people. “Disruptive innovation” solves problems for everyone. AI didn't just impact a niche group of people, it impacted everyone.
That's incredible. So very few things accomplish that. AI will go on to do so much good for the world - areas like cancer research will improve at a multiplier in contrast to before. I mean, people use AI for everything in their day-to-day lives asking prompts like:
“Make me an image on xyz”
“Write me this essay on abc”
“Draft my breakup text but make me sound like the mature one.”
“What’s the fastest way to lose weight?"
AI is revolutionizing cancer research… and also helping Chad figure out what to text his ex Rachel.
Jokes aside, at face value AI is great - “i can get amazing results without thinking?? noice.”
But behind said ‘face value’ we find a world where AI replaces the human mind, and that, is a very dangerous world.
What happens to the very things that make us human?
We’re in a time that AI is being frequently used to replace the human mind - replace our critical thinking, creativity, imagination.
AI is reshaping who we are.
And it’s happening everywhere. We have tools that could make us superhuman, but instead we're using them to think less, solve fewer problems ourselves, and basically cruise through life on autopilot in “zombie mode”, because these innovations “think” for us. It almost feels like we’re one step away from asking an LLM “how do i breathe again?”
Now don’t get me wrong, a lot of people are absolutely crushing it with AI. But most of us are using revolutionary technology to maintain comfortable mediocrity instead of pushing the boundaries of what "normal" looks like.
And that's slowly killing innovation itself.
Why is This Happening?
Human psychology.
The tools changed, but we didn’t.
A couple months ago, MIT released this study. It’s about how our brains work when using AI to write essays (which in my opinion… is the highest level of critical thinking). The results reveal exactly why we’re headed for a world where AI makes us stupid.
We're wired to conserve effort - why work harder when you can work smarter? When AI can write your emails, why learn to write better? When GPS handles navigation, why memorize routes? It makes perfect sense from an individual perspective.
EEG data from that MIT study backs this up. EEG (think a heart‑rate monitor for your neurons) showed that frontal‑theta (big‑picture planning) and beta bands (active thinking/problem‑solving) all but flatlined when people wrote with ChatGPT. Literal proof we work less hard once the bot steps in.
But here's the thing: we don't measure ourselves against our potential, we measure ourselves against everyone else. As long as we're keeping up with our peers, we feel contempt with our output.
“You are the product of the 5 people you surround yourself with” — Jim Rohn
So when everyone starts using the same shortcuts, the whole baseline shifts down together.
“Brain connectivity systematically scaled down with the amount of external support: the Brain‑only group exhibited the strongest, widest‑ranging networks, Search Engine group showed intermediate engagement, and LLM assistance elicited the weakest overall coupling.”
From the same experiment: brain engagement scaled Brain‑only > Google > ChatGPT. When every student grabbed the shortcut, the whole neural curve sank together - exactly the collective mediocrity Jim Rohn warned about.
It's like muscle atrophy, but for your brain. Stop using a skill, lose the skill. Except now we're outsourcing thinking itself to machines, and we're all getting mentally weaker without realizing it. The researchers literally call it planning off‑load: alpha/theta activity (linked to structuring thoughts and memory) disappeared once the LLM took over.
“The LLM group also fell behind in their ability to quote from the essays they wrote just minutes prior.”
83 % of the ChatGPT group couldn’t quote a single sentence they’d just written, while the ‘brain‑only’ writers rattled theirs off without thinking. That’s cognitive muscle loss in real time.
The scariest part? We think we're getting smarter because we can access more information and solve problems faster - 17/18 ChatGPT users still rated their essays ‘great.’
Access != understanding (haha get it…), and using tools isn't the same as developing capability.
Final Words
When we rely on technology to think for us, we lose critical thinking, creativity, and the humanity of who people are. We become consumers of solutions rather than creators of them. I’m not trying to preach “AI is the end of the world”, what I’m trying to share is that technology is very strong - imagine how much stronger it could be in addition to our critical thinking, creativity, and humanity, not as a replacement for them.
This use of technology is exactly how the world's most effective startups were made. The founders didn't just use existing tools to automate their way to success. They combined innovative technology with uniquely human insights - understanding problems that data couldn't capture, making creative connections that algorithms couldn't see, and building solutions that felt genuinely human.
Steve Jobs didn't just use computers; he reimagined what computers could be by applying taste and design thinking that no machine could replicate. The best AI companies today aren't just training bigger models - they're figuring out how to make AI actually useful by understanding human psychology and behaviour in ways that pure computation can't.
The opportunity isn't to let technology do everything for us. It's to use technology to amplify what makes us human, not replace it. When we do that, we don't just get better results - we get results that were impossible before.
We need to begin approaching these innovations with a sense of urgency, and ambition. Human potential is at the highest it has ever been - yet we're settling for the same results our grandparents got with way less powerful tools.
**Full disclaimer: I’m a 17 y/o and all of these points made are subject to change as I take on more life experiences. These essays are published as a way for me to push my current ideas out there as a true beginner.**
Do you disagree? If so, great! Reach out to me :: noah@barbaros.ca
I’m a 17 y/o -- the timing couldn’t be better to be wrong about things + learn! I’m not looking for a debate - I’m looking for new perspectives and ideologies. I’d love to chat.
great post, love the illustration lol 😂