The Future Consequences of AI Writing Tools on the Intellectual Capabilities of Americans

AI writing tools reduce the necessity of effort in the writing process that is beneficial to the critical thinking process

I believe the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) writing tools will have consequences for the intellectual development of Americans. I will justify this hypothesis through the historical example of technological innovation’s impact on the physical capabilities of Americans.

Throughout human history we have developed technology to improve efficiency and output. Early on we innovated to improve the yield of crops to better feed our populations. Later we developed machines and technology that reduced the need for physical labor. This has been a good development in many respects if we look at some of the harrowing physical labor of the past. Most people today would not be able to do the immense physical labor involved in farming or mining coal.

I was struck particularly by the experience of coal miners before the onset of better mining technology and processes. In The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell gives insight into the plight of coal miners in the early 20^th century. Every morning they took a metal cage straight down a shaft about 400 yards below the Earth’s surface. They needed to travel on average 2 miles underground in cramped tunnels that were only about 5 feet tall in a hunched over posture to reach the coal face where they would begin their 7.5-hour shift of shoveling coal onto a conveyer belt. Their work environment resembled many people’s image of hell including the heat, noise, confusion, darkness, danger, foul air, and cramped space. After their day of backbreaking work, they would have to travel this same 2 miles underground to reach the elevator shaft to return to the surface.

If we look at the horrors associated with the physical labor of the past, technological innovation has been a godsend. We have developed to the point where most jobs have light or no physical labor at all. The US economy is primarily service based as of 2021 with 77.6% of the US GDP coming from service-based activity. However, the development of our economy has not come without costs.

Since our economy has shifted into a service oriented one, most people work jobs where they sit for long hours during the day. On top of this, we have unprecedented access to a wide variety of food, beverages, and entertainment. We have even reached the point where you no longer have to grocery shop or travel to a restaurant to get food. You just order off your laptop or smartphone. Most people do not need to engage in physical activity to feed themselves. Many of the physical activities people once did in their leisure time are in part replaced by digital entertainment. This has had severe consequences for the health of people and has led to a significant increase in chronic conditions like heart disease.

There is a wealth of data that points to the physical decline of Americans over the past few decades. One study on grip strength found that between 1985 and 2014 the average grip strength of men declined by 8.7 kg or 19.1 pounds. The prevalence of obesity increased from 13.4% in 1960 to 42.8% in 2018. Both metrics paint a startling picture of American physical ability and where it is heading.

The combination of a lack of a need for physical labor to survive and the unprecedented access we have to food, beverages, and entertainments has dramatically impacted the physical abilities of Americans. I could on go for awhile about the health implications of the technological developments of the past century. However, I believe we are coming to a juncture where the intellectual capability of Americans will be in danger due to some recent developments in artificial intelligence. As we have seen in the case of machinery leading to the reduction of physical labor, and a corresponding decline in physical abilities over the past hundred years, I believe we will see the same thing happen with artificial intelligence affecting the intellectual development of Americans.

With the recent release of new AI tools, most notably Chat-GPT, anyone can generate a fairly well written email, essay, or short answer to a question. The information found by Chat-GPT is not always accurate, but one could easily feed it a set of a sources, and then ask it to generate an essay from the sources on the topic. These AI tools are only going to improve over time in accuracy and eloquence of language. The tools are accessible by anyone with a computer, tablet, or smart phone. This significantly reduces the amount of effort required by a student to complete a writing assignment, or a professional to complete a memo. At a cursory glance, this sounds like a fantastic innovation that will allow people to spend their time on more fruitful labor. However, it is removing the necessity of work that directly improves people’s critical thinking skills.

We saw previously that the introduction of new technology significantly reduced the necessity of physical labor, and over time we saw a decline in physical ability. AI tools significantly reduce the amount of effort a person needs to draft a piece of writing. People will spend less time both reading and writing because they can finish their assignments with ease using these new tools. If we think of the brain in the same context as a physical muscle, the less you use it over time, the weaker it gets. These tools will cause a decline in literacy levels and critical thinking skills of Americans. As it stands the average American reads at 8^th grade level and has a less than stellar writing ability.

There will be every temptation in the world for a person to just rely on AI tools to do the brunt of their research and writing projects. If Chat-GPT were around when I was in high school, I would have abused it to write all of my papers, and I would not have read a single assigned book. At the time, I didn’t understand the value of reading and writing. Unfortunately, many students today are much like my past self in that regard.

There are arguments that compare the emergence of AI writing tools to the creation of the calculator. Historically, many teachers thought that the calculator would lower student’s mathematic abilities because they would rely on the technology as a crutch. However, over time the level of mathematical competency rose because students could focus on more challenging and abstract math through algebra, trigonometry, and calculus. People try to equate the scenarios and say that removing the grunt work from writing will allow people to focus on higher level tasks. The issue here is that those “higher level” tasks are never defined. What is the next stage after writing and research? One could say that you could use AI writing tools to rapidly review research and create initial drafts that people can edit and iterate upon. However, the initial stages of research, outlining, drafting, and organizing are not expendable. They teach people how to form, organize, and articulate an argument. These practices reflect the process of critical thinking. Most people will not even expend the effort to edit the initial draft that comes out of an AI tool because the output is significantly better than the writing ability of most Americans.      

We study history to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. We have a clear historical example that reducing the necessity of a form of effort causes a loss in capabilities. Technological innovations led to a decline in physical ability because physical labor became unnecessary to survive. Now we have a new technology that reduces the need for reading, writing, and critical thinking. This will have consequences for the intellectual ability of Americans. It will not be easy to prevent people from using these tools with detection software as they become better. People will need to take the same attitude towards reading and writing as they do with their exercise regiments. Educators will need to find the right messaging to motivate kids to read and write as opposed to cheating with AI tools.

I think these AI writing tools do have a good role to play in eliminating the necessity of more robotic forms of writing like drafting a corporate email response. However, they will inevitably be used to replace beneficial forms of writing. If we are not careful there will be dire consequences for the intellectual capabilities of Americans.

Sources

Economic Data on the Service Based US Economy

Grip Strength Study

Obesity Prevalence

Literacy Statistics