Technology, particularly artificial intelligence, has dumbed down Americans. If we let artificial intelligence race ahead far enough, as we seem hellbent to do, it will render our intellect redundant. Superfluous. Inessential. Obsolete.
The dumb part is easy. Older adults will notice the prevalence of younger ones of resorting to search engines as constant lifelines. More people actually know less today.
Our minds were once repositories of knowledge. More than a few were even encyclopedic. Our brains were crammed with plenty of information we might’ve believed we never would’ve needed … until we did. Once we could inform others about subjects without needing to search for then download it. Not just specific fields, but in general.
Decades ago, former Yale professor David Gelernter wrote a book titled 1939: The Lost World of the Fair. His theme encompassed an anticipated world of tomorrow. Nothing like now. Just better.
The author used the 1939 World’s Fair as his canvas. The global gathering in Queens, New York, exhibited a dreamy future. A message doubly receptive to a populace emerging from a harsh Depression at home and turning the blindest eyes possible to murderous fascism and imminent global war abroad.
In a passage, Gelernter writes of “ferrous metal.” One would expect metallurgists and tin knockers to know of ferrous metals. Yet at that time a sizable portion of Americans would’ve recognized the alloy. Not that it would’ve had much importance in most daily lives, but good portions of Americans would’ve familiar with it nevertheless.
Gelernter uses ferrous metal as an example of how acquainted Americas of that age were with introduction to and retention of general information. Information almost esoteric until its real value is found in the quotidian. Let it be said our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents led less specialized lives but were somewhat aware of what existed beyond their immediate spheres. Versatility and inquisitiveness flowed through those Americans.
The idea of simply knowing only what was accepted as necessary and no more was less common, no, endemic, than today. After all, those prior generations didn’t have handheld know-it-alls providing instant answers few ever bother disputing.
When learning of students, high school and college, in America at least, submitting papers composed by programs, I reach the sad conclusion those to whom we will bequeath continuity are incapable of having, compiling, organizing, and presenting the results of contemplation. Preferably their own. Will such flaccid minds ever know the strenuous yet pleasurable rewards of mental gymnastics?
As our inheritors have amply demonstrated, they have no compunction insofar as putting their brains in the hands of machines.
Our successor generations are one day closer to information programs hiding their maliciousness behind logic. These shields will permit them to rearrange, remanufacture, or scrub altogether the epoch of humans. Right now, it requires someone to key in such changes then upload the disease. Those trails remain easy to track.
However, when malicious programs perform this, their erasures, replacements, backing and filling seamless, who’ll know? And if there are doubts, what can or will these uncertainties be based upon? Contrary evidence will no longer exist in fact or memory.
And with humanity having become so dependent on technology’s prominence over our mortal endeavors, who’ll cast much faith or any lot with our vestige primal remnants, intuition or hunches?
Now an example distinguishing 1939 from 2026.
To be sure, the majority of the Americans Gelernter featured from 1939 would’ve been aware that although few of them, their neighbors or friends drove diesel-fueled vehicles, each would’ve been affected by a comparable shortage of that fuel had it occurred then.
It’s amazing how blithe present Americans are. Too few of us comprehend the importance of low diesel stocks.
Just because most of our cars and light trucks run on gas, substantial numbers of Americans are discounting the shrinking levels of diesel. Surmising since their autos fill up on regular, super, or supreme, threats of low-to-no diesel at pumps isn’t much of a concern.
This is how remote our society has wandered from practical knowledge.
People in Gelernter’s book would’ve known rigs run on diesel. Those trucks transport and deliver consumer goods to every warehouse and retailer nationwide. Furthermore, transposed to today, Gelernter’s 1939 subjects would’ve known a high percentage of furnaces in our nation’s winter regions burn heating oil. That’s diesel. Without heavy-duty trucks – these also run on diesel – providing the spirit that fills home heating tanks as well as those for generators, swaths of America would suffer double whammies – frigid homes and bare store shelves.
Soon enough the unavoidable will reduce to zero those of us who “know.” All who’ll remain afterwards will only know they must rely on responses at their fingertips. This will leave future generations at the mercy of whatever a touchscreen tells them. That’s all they’ll know. That’s all they’ll have. There will be no one around who “knows” to clarify or correct. And yes, while there will still be printed matter inside libraries, our successors’ intellectual laziness may just make already seldom pilgrimages into these veritable temples of knowledge rarer.
Aside from reading books, our citizenry increasingly has trouble reading newspapers. We as a nation need returning to the daily print medium in order to grasp our world and our place in it. Televised reportage suffices best for breaking news. For in-depth information and clarification newspapers rule supreme.
Newspapers serve to keep communities apprised, nationally and locally. Articles that fill news holes, those columns contain the elements vital to our lives. Nope. Not the comics. Not the horoscope. And never the sports section.
Unfortunately for 21st century Americans, newspaper coverage is lighter than that of two generations ago. Somewhere devious minds convinced segments of Americans displeased with bolder journalism that shone light into, uncovering then delving into our nation’s unpleasant corners that simpler was preferable to revelation, confrontation, and repair. These relentless former inquiries rightly revised what Americans had been gulled to believe what America had been.
America hates when truth tarnishes its image.
Besides, “simpler” provides easier digestion of emptier mental calories quicker. Since it’s little of substance, there’s less to find bothersome.
As for most magazines occupying many “readers” today, they contain fluff, the more superficial the better. Even quality periodicals have succumbed to “dumbing down.” Not an exaggeration. Easy to prove. Compare copies of any 2026 edition of The New Yorker or Rolling Stone with one from, say, 1981.
Surely, we’ve all read somewhere how current school children are falling behind in reading skills. In comprehension. Fall behind in reading, one also falls behind in writing. Stumble in organizing thoughts into coherent passages, articulation suffers.
If you’re of certain ages, you know what I mean. Not only have your eyes wandered over young adults’ writing which can easily be mistaken as Teen Beat material, but have also listened to spaghetti-like grammar and usage so muddled and confounding it’s not speech but verbal mush.
Not slang for the hip. Every generation creates its own rebop to exclude squares and cornballs. Nor words and terms specific to industries or fields. Such develop from shorthand practicality of having everyone on the same pages.
Just mush. Speech for people incapable of or unwilling to speak distinctly.
Right down there with the vile gish Donald Trump spews. At least his evil mentor Roy Cohn was articulate. A crooked bastard was Cohn, indeed he was, though he was an articulate crooked bastard.
Yes, clear speech does matter. How many of us have thought lesser of someone unintelligible? If that’s a first impression, then it’s a horrible one. This isn’t about eloquence. This is about communication. This isn’t about rarefied education or presentation. This is simply about understanding and being understood.
Two necessary human skills artificial intelligence is eliminating.
Some of the most eloquent statements ever rendered have been spoken by people considered barely learned. Consequently, some of the most dismal utterances have been voiced by many blowhards who’ve deluded themselves into believing themselves above it all.
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