I think it's fair to say that artificial intelligence is inconsistent, frequently wrong, and sometimes shallow. While the evangelists might push back, anyone who uses it regularly knows this. It misses context, invents details, and can sound confident about things it does not actually understand. Those limits are obvious, and most users encounter them quickly.

Yet despite these flaws, for many people, using AI often feels impressive, if not amazing. For some, it already feels as though thinking itself has become easier.

That feeling matters.

This is not an article about machines becoming intelligent in the human sense. It is about a more subtle shift in how thinking is experienced, and about what happens when reasoning no longer has to carry consequences forward in time.

Human thinking has always been shaped by the pressure under which it is conceived. When we reason, we do so knowing that our ideas can cost us something. We can be embarrassed or misunderstood. We can damage relationships. We can make choices that close off other options. And once we decide, we do not get to reset the situation and try again.

That pressure is not a flaw in human cognition. It is what gives thinking its weight.

Hard questions linger precisely because the stakes are real. Deciding whether to leave a job or commit to a........

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