The Death of Critical Thinking

During November of 2022, OpenAI released their first version of ChatGPT. What I didn’t know then was that chaos would follow. Now, I’m not going to come on here and pretend I’m the perfect person who has never opened ChatGPT in her life and always resists the urge to take the easy way out - I’m not. I’m just here to remind you of the simple truth that you hear every single day: ChatGPT is destroying our brains.

The invention of ChatGPT in 2022 will go down in history and I’m here to tell you it will not be for good reasons. As I awoke each morning in early November of 2022, not once did I think “maybe I should enjoy life as it is.” I didn’t think that in March of 2020 either, but look where that got us. AI is actively ruining us, actively leading us toward a time that we will wake up into and think “gosh, I should’ve enjoyed life as it was.” This is not an easier way to write an email to your boss. This will lead to war and famine and a world run by robots. It’s everything we were afraid of and suddenly no one cares - right at the very moment we have to care.

And somehow, we have all just accepted it. We went from being terrified of robots taking over the world to asking them to write our emails. We went from watching movies about artificial intelligence becoming smarter than humans to saying “ChatGPT, can you make this sound more professional?” as if that is somehow completely different.

Maybe it is different. Maybe I’m being dramatic. But I don't think being dramatic is necessarily a bad thing when the thing we're being dramatic about is something that could fundamentally change the way we think.

And, as I stand here, surrounded by AI, watching the world crumble around me, I can’t help but think, “I would have way more time to sleep and crochet if I gave my five-page essay prompt to ChatGPT.”

There it is, folks: the death of critical thinking.

Nothing original or good will come from a robot writing my essays. In fact, it would only waste my professors’ time. So, every time I feel that urge, I write for fun. Sure, my essay isn’t getting any closer to done, but at least I am forcing my brain to think critically, to think originally, and above all, think. And I think that's something we forget when we talk about AI. We talk about how much time it saves us. We talk about how convenient it is. We talk about how much easier it makes everything.
But what if sometimes the difficulty is the point? Maybe struggling to come up with an idea is the point. Maybe staring at a blank Google Doc for twenty minutes is the point. Maybe writing a terrible first sentence and then deleting it and writing another terrible first sentence is the point. Maybe we're supposed to struggle.

I know that sounds insane in the big 2026. We have technology that can do almost anything, so why would we choose to make things harder for ourselves?

Because I don't want to forget how.

I don't want to forget how to write an email without asking a robot to write it for me. I don't want to forget how to read something without asking a chatbot to summarize it. I don't want to forget how to come up with an idea without being given ten ideas first. I don't want to forget how to have a thought that wasn't handed to me.
And, maybe most importantly, I don't want to forget how to be bad at something.
Because that's another thing AI takes away from us.

You can ask AI to write a poem, make a picture, plan your vacation, write your resume, fix your grammar, summarize your textbook, come up with a business idea, or tell you what to say to your boyfriend after an argument.
And sure, it can do all of those things.
But then what are you doing?

I could ask ChatGPT to write this article for me. It would probably be longer than this. It would probably have better transitions. It would probably use fewer run-on sentences.
But it wouldn't be mine.
And that matters to me.
I could type the words “write me a blog post about the dangers of artificial intelligence” and have an entire article sitting in front of me within seconds. I could copy and paste it onto this website, give myself a pat on the back, and move on with my day.

But then Just Jenna Thingz wouldn't really be Just Jenna Thingz, would it?
It would be Just Jenna Thingz, featuring the thoughts of a computer.
No thank you.

I could sit here and tell you, as most other blogs do, that you shouldn’t use AI because of the environmental impacts, the expenses, the lack of critical thinking, etc. The truth is, though, you shouldn’t use AI because AI will inevitably turn us into one big herd of sheep. We will live the exact same lives and think the exact same thoughts and all of those thoughts will have derived from the same human-adjacent robot’s voice.
We will lose originality.
I can see it slipping through the cracks from where I stand.
And that's why I want to make something clear about this website now.
I am not going to use AI to write my blog posts.
Not because I think I'm morally superior to anyone who does. Like I said at the beginning, I have used ChatGPT before. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I have never been tempted by the little magical box that can do my work for me.
I have.

But I don't want it here.
I want Just Jenna Thingz to be written by Jenna.
That means there might be typos. There might be awkward sentences. There might be an unnecessary amount of commas and there WILL be an unnecessary amount of italicized words. There might be paragraphs that could have been worded better. There might even be times when I look back at something I wrote and think, “Wow, I really thought that?”
Good.

I would rather have a website full of imperfect thoughts that actually came from me than a website full of perfectly polished thoughts that didn't.

I don't want AI writing my opinions for me, either. If I am going to make an argument about politics, I want it to be my argument. If I'm going to talk about college, I want it to be my experience. If I'm going to talk about music, I want to tell you why I like the song.

I don't want some computer deciding what I sound like.
I want to sound like myself.

And maybe that sounds like a small decision. It's just a blog, after all.
But I think small decisions are exactly where this starts.
If I let AI write this article because I was tired, then maybe I'll let it write the next one because I don't know what to say. Then maybe I'll use it to edit my writing. Then maybe I'll start asking it for ideas. Then maybe I'll stop writing altogether because there's no reason for me to write when a computer can do it faster.
And eventually, what exactly is left?
The website still exists.
The words are still there.
But I am no longer behind them - that's what scares me.
Not necessarily the robot apocalypse. Not necessarily the robots taking over the government or marching down the street with guns or whatever else science fiction has convinced us is coming.

I'm more scared of something much quieter.
I'm scared that we'll willingly hand over the things that make us human because they're inconvenient.
Our creativity.
Our curiosity.
Our ability to think.
Our ability to struggle.
Our ability to make something terrible and be proud of it anyway.

We will choose convenience over creativity until we forget that we ever had a choice.
We will become one big herd of sheep.
And, personally, I don't want to be a sheep.

So, as I leave you with a metaphor about sheep, I want you to remember this: you have won today.
You have read a blog without the help of AI (hopefully), and so you are victorious.
Maybe you wrote an email yourself today.
Maybe you looked something up instead of asking ChatGPT.
Maybe you sat down and wrote something terrible and decided to keep going anyway.
Maybe you crocheted something that came out completely wrong.
Maybe you had a thought that nobody else gave you.
Congratulations.
You thought for yourself.
All it takes is to live life the way you did up until November of 2022. All it takes is to find the answers yourself, read the articles yourself, write the emails yourself, make the mistakes yourself, create the art yourself, and, above all, think for yourself.
I know AI isn't going away.
I'm not naive enough to believe that one girl with a pink blog is going to stop artificial intelligence from changing the world.
But I can decide what happens on my little corner of it.
And on this website, at least, I want the words to be mine.
All it takes is you.