What happens to democracy when we stop thinking for ourselves?
AI does not only change how we work – it can change how we think. When critical reading and reflection erode, we risk a cognitive decline that opens the way for a new elite – and a weakened democracy.
A report from OpenAI, published recently, shows that most people use ChatGPT for two things: retrieving information and writing texts. These are precisely the activities that have historically trained our ability to read, reflect, and think critically. When we outsource them to machines, we risk a cognitive decline – and a democracy without foundations.
Explosive growth and new habits
In less than three years, ChatGPT has grown to 700 million monthly users – almost 10 percent of the world’s adult population. Usage now amounts to 18 billion messages each week.
OpenAI documents that nearly 80 percent of all usage falls into three categories: practical guidance, information retrieval, and writing. In the workplace, writing dominates – about 40 percent of all messages. Two-thirds of these are not original text but polishing of what the user has already written.
Whether we let AI write from scratch or simply polish our own drafts, we are outsourcing parts of the very process that develops thought.
The brain on standby
A recent study from MIT Media Lab measured brain activity among people writing with and without AI. The results were clear: those who used ChatGPT throughout the process showed lower cognitive activity, weaker memory, and less sense of ownership over their text. Those who wrote first and then used AI to refine it retained much more mental engagement.
The study is small and not yet peer-reviewed, but it points in the same direction many have feared: when we outsource thinking, our brains stop exercising.
Two types of reading – both in decline
Throughout history, we have read in two ways:
For pleasure and immersion – novels, stories, literature. This develops language, empathy, and the ability to sustain focus.
For information – books, articles, reports. This trains us to search, evaluate sources, compare arguments, and ask critical questions.
Both are under pressure. Leisure reading is losing out to short tiktok and snapchat videos. Informational reading is being replaced by AI delivering ready-made answers. What we lose is not just knowledge, but the ability to evaluate, interpret, and understand.
The cognitive foundation of democracy
Democracy doesn’t only require citizens who can read complex documents and weigh arguments — it also requires a sense of history. Because history repeats itself. When we understand the history of philosophy, science, and politics, we learn to see patterns: how crises arise, how ideas spread, and how power shifts. That gives us the tools to analyze the present and anticipate what may come.
But history cannot be reduced to one-minute clips. The rise of fascism, for example, cannot be explained in a TikTok video. It requires reading books, understanding decades of economic, cultural, and political currents, and recognizing how fragile democracies can be. Without that ballast, we lose the ability to recognize the warning signs when they reappear.
The consequences are already visible:
Debates about gender equality “going in the wrong direction” become ahistorical when we forget the centuries of struggle behind progress.
When we don’t know the history of fascism’s rise, we fail to recognize the signs when they resurface.
Climate policy, economic crises, and migration require understanding of long-term connections – not slogans.
Without historical ballast and critical reading, citizens become vulnerable to simplistic explanations and demagoguery.
A new inequality
Inequality has traditionally been about income and wealth. It could be mitigated by education and hard work. Now we see the contours of a more dangerous inequality: inequality in the very ability to think.
A small group of resourceful people will continue to read, analyze, and understand – and control the technology and collective thought. The rest risk losing the capacity for critical thought. The result will be a cognitive elite with disproportionate influence.
The choice before us
This is not a call to shut down AI. But we must strengthen what cannot be outsourced: deep reading, critical reflection, and historical understanding.
Schools must teach children to read slowly and ask questions. Media must invest in depth, not just clicks. And we must insist on thinking for ourselves – even when AI offers quick answers.
If we fail to do so, democracy may be reduced to a shell – ruled by a cognitive elite, while the majority remain passive spectators.
“Afraid of Heights.” One of my paintings. I thought of it while writing this article, because it was created around a feeling of anxiety — the same kind of unease I feel now.