AI is eroding human capacities – effort, attention, judgment, agency – often in ways we mistake for progress.

The losses are subtle, and that’s what makes them dangerous.

Small, deliberate acts can reverse the drift before it becomes permanent.

AI is making life easier, faster, and more convenient. And much of that is genuine progress. But quietly, almost imperceptibly, some important things are disappearing from our lives – things we didn’t realize we depended on until they started to fade away. Over the past year, I’ve been exploring these losses in this column, and a pattern has emerged. The things we’re losing aren’t dramatic. They’re subtle. They’re the kind of things you don’t miss until one day you reach for them and find they’re gone.

Here are six of the things we’re losing, and six steps you can take to get them back.

1. The Illusion of Ease

We tend to think of ease as an unqualified good. But this framing hides something important: some forms of difficulty aren’t obstacles to the life we want. They’re part of how that life gets built.

When I was growing up in Bangladesh, getting hold of a Simon and Garfunkel cassette required real effort. That effort made the music matter to me in a way it wouldn’t have if I’d simply asked Siri to play it. The investment created the attachment. This principle applies far beyond music. Effort is how we turn information into knowledge, how we turn events into the experiences that shape us.

AI is removing friction from our lives at an extraordinary rate, and much of that removal is welcome. But we should ask of any type of friction whether there is something we need to preserve there. When friction is purely procedural, eliminate it gladly. But when it’s the kind that teaches you to notice, to remember, to care, then removing it doesn’t save you effort. It costs you growth.

Before reaching for the easiest path, pause. Ask whether the struggle you’re about to bypass is the kind that builds something in you. If it is, it’s not a cost. It’s the whole point.

2. The........

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