How to Outsmart AI: Strategies to Protect and Enhance Your Cognitive Abilities
In a world where Artificial Intelligence can write emails, generate reports, and even code applications, a crucial question emerges: Will these tools enhance our thinking, or will they slowly erode it? As a digital forensics expert, I’ve witnessed technology’s transformative effects, and I’m convinced the answer depends on how you choose to implement these tools in your daily life.
AI’s Hidden Human Cost: Cognitive Offloading
When you reflexively ask ChatGPT to summarize an article you could read yourself or generate a first draft without developing your own framework, you’re engaging in what psychologists call “cognitive offloading.” This mirrors research findings on GPS navigation: people who rely heavily on GPS develop weaker spatial reasoning abilities over time, showing significant decreases in hippocampal activity and spatial memory.
I can attest to this firsthand. Years ago when I started traveling regularly for work, I bought one of the first TomTom GPS devices on the market. It made my life easier right away. Instead of worrying about maps and directions, I could simply follow the turn-by-turn instructions to reach my destinations. Navigation had never been my strong suit, so this technology seemed like a perfect solution. What I didn’t realize at the time was how this convenience was changing my behavior. Today, I know my “mental muscles” for navigation are atrophied, because, for years, GPS has handled the work of building mental maps for me. I never fully developed that skill myself.
This experience offers a straightforward parallel to how we use AI tools today. When we regularly let AI handle certain types of thinking for us, we might be less likely to develop or maintain those same mental skills ourselves. The question becomes: what cognitive abilities do we want to preserve, and which are we comfortable outsourcing to machines?
Each time you delegate thinking to AI without first engaging with the material yourself, you miss an opportunity to strengthen neural pathways that support critical thinking, creativity, and analytical reasoning. Neuroscientists have documented this phenomenon, showing that the brain’s “use it or lose it” principle applies directly to cognitive functions.
5 Ways To Strengthen Your Thinking With AI
The good news is that you can harness AI’s capabilities while still developing your cognitive abilities. Here’s how to use AI to make yourself smarter, not replaced.
- Learn To Be ‘Bored’ Before Using AI
Constant stimulation – from social media, AI tools, and digital notifications – prevents our brains from entering their most creative state. Boredom is a critical cognitive reset button. When we allow our minds to wander, the default mode network in our brain activates: a state of neural activity associated with deep thinking, creativity, and self-reflection. This is where breakthrough ideas are born.
Digital tools and AI interrupt this process. They provide instant answers and constant engagement. By constantly seeking external input, we rob ourselves of the conversation happening inside our own minds. Try incorporating intentional boredom: take a daily walk, silence your phone, allow your thoughts to roam freely. Note any insights that surface and capture them in a notes app. Later, expand on the initial thought using your own cognitive skills. Then, and only then, invite technology to help refine the idea. Remember, you are the creator; technology is simply a tool to support your thinking.
- Use AI To Create Your Own Learning Ladders
Instead of using AI to simplify what you know, venture into unfamiliar territory with increasing complexity. When learning something new, start by asking AI to explain a concept at a beginner level. Then, request the same explanation at an intermediate level, and then an advanced level. Don’t move on to the next level until you can accurately explain each concept back to the AI.
A business student I know used this approach when studying advanced analytical methods. Rather than relying on AI to summarize complex concepts, he first asked for basic explanations, then progressively requested more sophisticated treatments of the same topics. He would master each level, working through practice problems himself and testing his understanding, before moving to more complex applications involving multiple variables and real-world conditions. Within a semester, his grasp of these analytical methods surpassed peers who had simply used AI to generate analysis templates without building the underlying conceptual framework themselves.
This progressive approach builds deeper expertise that shows in his ability to identify subtle factors others missed. This deeper understanding also dramatically accelerated his career path. While most of his classmates were still applying for internships, he secured a paid analyst position. The hiring manager later told him that what set him apart was his ability to explain why certain analytical approaches were appropriate in specific scenarios, rather than just applying them mechanically. Because he understood the fundamental principles rather than just the outputs, he could adapt his analysis to unique situations where standard templates fell short. Educational psychologists call this the “zone of proximal development.”
- Use AI for Scaffolding And Not Solutions
When facing complex problems, use AI to create frameworks that organize information and highlight relationships without providing the actual answers. Ask AI to create a structured outline of key considerations or a visual relationship map. Have AI identify the key decision points or critical questions without answering them. Work through each component yourself, using the structure as a guide rather than a crutch.
Consider a marketing professional tasked with developing a comprehensive strategy for entering a new market. Rather than asking AI to generate the entire strategy, she first requests a framework outlining the key elements that need consideration. The AI provides a structured outline organizing the challenge into major categories: market analysis, competitive landscape, regulatory considerations, customer segmentation, positioning, channel strategy, pricing models and success metrics. For each category, it lists critical questions without answering them: “What cultural factors might impact product adoption in this region?” “Which competitors have attempted similar market entries and what were their outcomes?” “What pricing sensitivities exist in different customer segments?” Using this framework as a guide, she can then conduct her own research into each area, bringing her industry knowledge and company-specific context to the analysis. The result would be a market entry strategy that reflects both comprehensive consideration of all factors and deep integration with the company’s specific capabilities. Instead of having AI solve the problem, it simply helps structure the problem in a way that makes it manageable for human analysis.
- Make AI Your Intellectual Sparring Partner
After forming your own opinion, ask AI to present the strongest counterarguments. Request multiple different approaches to the same problem, then synthesize your own solution. Have AI play devil’s advocate to your conclusions, then evaluate its critiques. This collaborative approach keeps you firmly in the driver’s seat while benefiting from AI’s ability to offer diverse perspectives.
Attorneys have found particular value in this approach. For example, a trial attorney preparing for a complex employment discrimination case first develops her own case strategy, identifying key arguments, relevant precedents and her theory of the case. Instead of using AI to analyze evidence or case law, she uses it as an intellectual sparring partner to challenge her thinking and strengthen her reasoning.
As a skeptical judge, she’d ask the AI, “what questions would you have about my interpretation of this precedent?” and “As a juror with no legal background, what parts of this argument might be confusing or unconvincing?” She’s using it to articulate alternative viewpoints that challenge her to strengthen her own thinking. Her human judgment—informed by courtroom experience, emotional intelligence, and cultural context—remains the essential ingredient.
- Maintain AI-Free Time Blocks
Perhaps counterintuitively, using AI to enhance your thinking requires establishing times when you don’t use it at all. Designate your first 60-90 minutes of deep work as AI-free. Complete first drafts of creative or analytical work without AI assistance. Schedule regular “thinking walks” without any technology. Practice recall before looking things up, trying to remember facts, concepts, or processes before checking them. These boundaries ensure your core cognitive abilities remain strong while still leveraging AI for appropriate tasks.
AI And Your Brain: From Consumer To Architect
The most powerful shift you can make is from passive consumer of AI outputs to active architect of your cognitive environment. This means deliberately choosing when to use AI rather than defaulting to it, designing workflows that integrate AI at specific points rather than throughout, regularly evaluating whether your AI use is strengthening or weakening your thinking, and adjusting your approach based on observed impacts on your cognitive performance.
The question isn’t whether to use AI. These tools are becoming unavoidable in professional and educational contexts. The question is how to use them in ways that enhance rather than diminish your unique human capabilities. By implementing these strategies, you position yourself to thrive in an AI-driven world not by competing with machines at tasks they’ll always do better, but by strengthening the distinctly human cognitive abilities that AI cannot replicate: a sense of taste, contextual judgment, creative synthesis, ethical reasoning and the ability to navigate ambiguity. The future belongs not to those who simply use AI, but to those who use it in a way that promotes human flourishing in parallel.
