I keep hearing people ask AI questions they have not tried to answer themselves. A difficult email arrives, and before deciding what they think, they ask the machine how to respond. A choice appears, and the first instinct is to prompt it rather than think it through.
The tool is useful, but the order matters. When AI becomes the first step, it removes the part where a view begins to form.
Thinking is partly a habit. It grows through hesitation and the effort of testing an answer before accepting it. Remove that effort often enough and the habit weakens.
The danger is not that AI will always be wrong. It may often be right. The danger is that people become less able to recognise when it is wrong, because they have stopped practising the judgment required to challenge it.
The question itself begins to change. "What do I think?" becomes "What would the machine decide?"
The machine will keep producing answers. I am less sure the person asking will still be able to form one without it.