There’s something strangely humbling about asking an AI how to reopen a chat window. A few years ago, we would’ve laughed at someone doing that. “Just click around,” we’d say. “Figure it out.” But now, we instinctively ask the machine. Faster. Easier. Less effort. And that tiny moment made me wonder: has AI actually become smarter, or have we simply become less willing to think? The scary part is that both can be true at the same time. AI today can write code, generate art, explain physics, imitate voices, summarize books, and answer questions faster than most humans can even type them. It feels intelligent because, in many ways, it is. Not conscious. Not alive. But undeniably capable. Yet alongside that rise in capability, something else has quietly happened to us. We’ve started outsourcing friction. We no longer remember phone numbers because our phones do. We no longer memorize routes because maps speak for us.…