The More You Trust AI, The Less Valuable You Become (and what to do instead)

What happens when artificial intelligence stops helping us think and starts quietly doing the thinking for us?In this conversation, Prof. Dr. Michael Gerlich explores cognitive offloading, the convenience trap, and why AI may be changing not just how we work, but how we learn, remember, judge, and stay intellectually sharp.But this isn’t just a story about better tools.It’s about a deeper shift:🔹 What happens when convenience becomes more valuable than critical thinking?🔹 Could AI improve efficiency while slowly weakening memory, curiosity, and judgment?🔹 And if this shift happens quietly, will society react before the long-term damage is done?At the centre of the discussion is a harder question:If AI becomes the default system for solving problems, can we keep the human ability to think deeply, question well, and stay meaningfully involved in our own decisions?Because the real danger of AI may not be that it becomes smarter than us, but that we stop using the intelligence we already have.