Cognitive Surrender

I use AI daily for a variety of tasks. And while I understand the discourse around the dangers of cognitive surrender and offloading, I think it has actually helped me improve my cognition, and here's how.

🤖 I am constantly learning. Not only am I learning through experimentation with various AI tools, but I also seek to understand the underlying technology and how it works.

💻 I am doing things I never thought I could do. I use Claude Code to build software, which forces me to understand data architecture, deployment environments, and evals (among many other things!).

🧩 I am doing more systems thinking, not only redesigning my workflows, but also thinking about how to entirely restructure my business operations with AI at the center. It's like solving a puzzle - figuring out how all the pieces work together.

🗣️ I train nonprofits and foundations on how to use AI, so I translate complex technological concepts into plain language that is accessible to non-tech folks.

While I do admit some cognitive offloading for some tasks (grant writing 👀), I think I'm overall net positive for improved cognition in the AI era.

I'm curious - what do you offload to AI, and how do you counteract total cognitive surrender? ⬇️