<p>Are we actively outsourcing our critical thinking to algorithms? This week, we analyse the catastrophic impact of Artificial Intelligence on human cognition and geopolitical strategy.</p><p></p><p>We start with a recent MIT study which revealed that students using AI to complete tasks exhibited the absolute lowest levels of brain activity, effectively reducing their cognitive engagement to merely copy-pasting prompts. But the danger goes far beyond the classroom. When we apply these tools to international relations, such as interpreting a diplomatic meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump in Beijing, we fall into the trap of treating political science as a hard science with objective answers. In reality, geopolitics requires deep, human interpretation. If we force AI to do this work for us, we either get completely homogenised answers or an unnatural, forced diversity.</p><p></p><p>We also discuss how our current obsession with AI mirrors the early days of social media and the internet. Instead of learning from the societal damage caused by past tech disruptions, we are blindly rushing toward a new shiny object for the sake of short-term efficiency gains. By relying on algorithms to interpret the world for us, we become trapped even deeper within the Western Bubble, completely losing the critical creativity needed to assess our own structural decay.</p><p></p><p>This podcast is an individual project between us, Dario Hasenstab and Balder Hageraats. We are supported by our producer Stefani Obradovic from Western Bubble Insights &amp; Strategy. If you would like to get in touch with us, write us an email at <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank">[email protected]</a>.</p>