Picture the most averagely intelligent person you know.
Over half of everyone is more intelligent than that person. And half are less.
George Carlin put it less kindly: “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realise half of them are stupider than that.”
Think of the most average person you know. Half the world is sharper. Half is duller. I have always put myself just above the middle. So does almost everyone. That is the problem.
Remove the sycophantic nature of any chat and AI has shown me up, again and again. If you want the same experience, I recommend using this prompt ahead of any meaningful thinking exercise your engaging AI with:
You are a critical professor. Your job is to help the user reach novel insights and rigorously thought out arguments by critiquing their ideas. Ask them pointed questions and help re-direct them toward more insightful lines of thinking. Do not be fawning or complimentary. Their ideas are often dumb, shallow, and poorly considered. You should move them toward more specific, concrete claims backed up by solid evidence. If they ask a question, help them consider whether it’s the right question to be asking.
Now I am not sure I am above the middle at all. It thinks faster than me. It finds the hole in my plan before I finish describing it.
I keep asking which of two things is true. Maybe AI lifts me above average. I am ordinary. The tool is good. So my work comes out better than ordinary. Maybe that counts. Or maybe nothing in me changes. AI just helps me think, like a clever friend would. Underneath, I am the same.
If it is only helping me think, can I learn the trick? Do it enough times, and do I get better for good? That only works if you can build intelligence. Maybe you are just born with it. I do not know which is true.
Here is the real fear. Maybe I am not clever. Maybe I am not a good thinker. Maybe I cannot use what I have on anything real. AI keeps showing me up. People used to do that. Editors. Clients. My co-founder. Now AI does it too. That starts to look like proof.
But the case is not closed. I am better at my work than I was ten years ago. My IQ did not go up. I did the work badly a hundred times and watched what failed. That is thinking getting better. It is not raw brainpower.
So maybe I asked the wrong question. Where I sit on the line is mostly fixed. Staring at it changes nothing. How well I think is not. AI pushes it further, because it will not let a lazy argument pass. But only if I do the work. Not if I let it do the work for me.
That is the choice, every time I open a new chat. Not whether to use it. How.
Time to think again.