AI, cognitive atrophy and its bias boosting potential

My daily meditative practice this morning had a very sweary inner monologue.

Not much zen. Thoughts included...

- Are we sleepwalking, or running, into a zombified world of computer says no on steroids?

- Is AI enshitifying our critical thinking already?

- AI is definately coming for our jobs if we can't be bloody human and add value that way

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the possibilities of AI... and we need to acknowledge the rubbish parts too. 

Yesterday afternoon in a Next store. Their computer system glitched - simple mistake. I had clear evidence to prove it. The shop assistant refused to look at the evidence, or me in the eye. Computer said no. I hope I resisted my inner Karen.

What struck me was how she surrendered her human connection, empathy and critical thinking to the machine. Not great for customer service or brand connection.

It was only by bypassing the human altogether that the issue was resolved. When I asked if the error would be logged they still denied its existence. So the glitch remains in Next’s system waiting for other customers to experience.

I was reminded of my Next experience reading about LinkedIn’s algorithm supercharging existing bias in society. It seems to be doubling down on patriarchy white supremacy and entrenched power structures.

Strikes me that we see this pattern ticking along everywhere on social media and on the world stage with ridiculous, and yet glaringly predictable consequences.

Feels like bias amplification and critical thinking atrophy is already here

All organisations must take responsibility. If humans abdicate that responsibility and leave it all to machines what real value do we add?

This research spoke to me:

“Automation bias, defined as the tendency to excessively trust AI outputs while ignoring contradictory evidence or personal judgment, drives a three-phase cycle: (1) initial dependency development, fuelled by perceived AI efficiency; (2) critical thinking atrophy via cognitive offloading; and (3) bias internalisation and propagation, where AI biases are inherited and reproduced in human decisions, even without AI support” (Kosmyna et al., 2025).

Ultimately these are the questions we must confront if we want to reclaim what it means to be human. The future is not about simply having smarter minds. More critically it is about refusing to subjugate our thinking to machines.

It's about resisting the atrophy and enshitification of our thinking for ourselves and our teams.

We need humans to be human, having empathy and truly engaging with other people. Actively seeing what's happening around us and taking action.

LinkedIn are you listening? It's not good enough to be a fellow traveller with your AI and algorithms. Otherwise what is the point of the humans who work there?

Anyhoo, apparently as a female voice this post is shouting into the void. If you're here, happy Friday and I hope I haven't ruined your zen.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2024/dec/bias-ai-amplifies-our-own-biases