Smart people still have intelligence but often hand the hard work of thinking to AI.

AI erases the messy struggle of developing an idea and leaves only the look of thought.

Cognitive friction may now feel like a defect, so people shun thinking and rely on AI for the answer.

This story started out rather differently. The initial idea was that the "genius experience" may be widely accessible to those using artificial intelligence (AI), even those with average IQs. And this thinking extended into the quest for nurturing genius across a broad population.

But lately, I'm seeing something else going on in our quest for genius. And it's happening to people I consider to be exceptionally smart. In this curious cohort, their intelligence is there, but the expression of that intelligence feels, at least to me, sort of frictionless, if not theatrical. Most of this arrives in the written form—functionally insulated from live encounters. And it's not just AI slop or today's popular argument........

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