AI is entropy for human thought

AI is everywhere. It's an integral part of life now. Writing code, writing essays, doing research, solving math problems. But hidden amongst AI's utility, are the underlying patterns AI seems to always converge on. Everywhere you go; LinkedIn posts all writing as "It's not X—it's Y"; customer service calls which can't extend beyond their scope; AI essays all share the same cadence and ideation; these patterns AI optimises for and defaults to are slowly consuming more and more of our lives.

Originality in thought is being replaced by these patterns of sameness. We are unique in our own ways, yet our interactions with AI will move our individual thoughts towards the collective average. Sooner or later, you and everyone around you might lose the ability to think, and it all ties in to one of the basic concepts of the universe: entropy.

Entropy

There is a physics concept that explains what is really happening: entropy. In thermodynamics, entropy measures disorder: specifically disorder where everything becomes indistinguishable. High entropy means maximum sameness, there are no differences left to uncover. And there's one thing about it: entropy always increases. Anything and everything will eventually converge due to entropy and we can do nothing to stop it.

But crucially, entropy is not chaos or randomness. Chaos is the backbone of a functioning universe, nothing is deterministic, randomness compounds to create uniqueness. Entropy is uniform disorder, where the point of maximum entropy is called "heat death": the temperature is the same everywhere and nothing interesting can happen anymore.

AI reliance

AI is to the 2020s student as iPads and laptops were to the 2010s student. The AI kid is the modern day iPad kid. AI literacy is the new digital literacy, and it's important that students understand it as early as possible. Unfortunately, this understanding has not been limited to harnessing AI's power; instead, it's replaced thinking entirely. Students' AI reliance is slowly drawing away their thinking capabilities.

Hand a student an essay prompt, their first instinct is not to think deeply about it, attempt to write an essay, and refine with AI; instead they dump it into an AI chatbot and voila, an essay is produced. Yet, without your own original thoughts or ideas, that essay is the generic amalgamation of all essays produced, good or bad. In the end, both the student and essay lack depth of any sorts and are worse off than where they started. AI reliance is rot disguised as help.

It extends past essays too, math problems, science quizzes, history research, etc. Any use of AI for the bulk of thought only degrades students further and further. If I wrote videos and blog posts with ideas generated using AI, then I jettison my ability to synthesise my experiences and knowledge, my ability to write and convey as well. My videos and writing would become generic AI points, and contribute nothing new of value to others. When I code, if I didn't put the effort in to understand how coding and logic worked and just vibe-coded, I'll create apps and websites which are low-tier copies of pre-existing ones online, again creating nothing new of value.

The entropy for human thought

AI is the entropy for human thought. As AI is trained on human output, but human output is increasingly AI, we reach entropy acceleration. Input and output become homogenous and the conglomerate of human thought reduces down to the state of thinking the same. When everyone's LinkedIn posts sound the same, every essay follows the same template, we lose the ability to recognise original thought when we see it. The difference between real and artificial is non-existent, not just because AI becomes more human-like, but because humans become more AI-like. We effectively reach a maximum entropic state, or "heat death", for human thought.

At heat death, three things die. Innovation dies: there is nothing new to think of because everyone thinks the same. Progress dies: progress is observing something others don't; at heat death, everyone sees the same pattern. Meaning dies: humans are unique; if your thoughts are statistically average, indistinguishable from everyone else's, what does individuality even mean?

But how fast convergence happens depends on the many processes that occur all around us. Before AI, we were already trending towards convergence with the advent of mass media and standardised education. But with AI, we've industrialised homogenisation. Every student, writer, coder, artist is being nudged towards the same statistical average at scale. The rate of convergence has increased exponentially.

What should you do

So what can you do to avoid heat death? Think.

Thinking is supposed to be hard. the friction you feel in doing anything is where thinking happens. The struggle builds something AI can't replicate. AI offers to remove that discomfort instead, and so by outsourcing the struggle, you outsource your ability to think, putting you at mercy of the heat death.

The individual who escapes heat death, the individual who retains their individuality, the individual who comes out on top is the one that chooses the friction of thinking. They plan essays with what they know, they write as they feel fit, they learn the language even when it's confusing. They read through original documents even when it's slow.

Leave the AI to the menial tasks, to the refining, the prodding, the suggesting. But keep the thinking to yourself, don't delegate it. If you have autonomy over your thoughts, you'll have autonomy over your life. Don't be the one who leaves everything for AI, and realises they become the average when it's too late to turn back.