Situationship with AI: “What are we?”

Ever since Artificial Intelligence entered our lives, we have been living through a profound historical turning point, a shift transforming everything from global business models to our most private spheres. We are still far from reaching a state of stabilization; in fact, we are very much in the eye of the storm. I vividly remember my university years, which, let’s be honest, weren’t that long ago, and how we used to dedicate entire weeks to project based assignments. We poured our hearts and minds into every layer, from building the structural framework to polishing the finest details. Today, a striking shift has taken over: presentations, assignments, research papers, and complex projects are routinely generated entirely by AI. At a surface glance, it feels miraculous, doesn’t it? You take a task that would normally demand days of intense cognitive labor, hand it to an AI tool, and voilà, it’s ready in mere minutes. But this is exactly where the grand illusion hides. Because, in reality, it isn’t ready.

AI has earned an incredibly valuable and undeniable place in our world due to its sheer utility. Dismissing it outright or adopting a rigid anti AI stance is the antithesis of an open mind; fighting a tool that introduces such profound convenience is a futile rebellion against the contemporary world. Yet, the current landscape is both fascinating and deeply unsettling. It feels remarkably like placing an unfamiliar object into the hands of a baby. Driven by pure, unadulterated curiosity, the infant turns the object over, testing its boundaries through blind trial and error, completely unaware of any underlying dangers.

We have walked a similar path before. Following the 1970s, the world underwent a massive trial by fire with the birth of the internet. Humanity discovered its pitfalls through collective trial and error, and eventually, digital and media literacy became a cornerstone of modern education. Today, history is repeating itself. While the “Big Bang” heat of the AI revolution is still scorching and far from settling, we are already beginning to taste its side effects. It is no surprise that whispers of a newly urgent “AI literacy” are beginning to echo. This friction brings us to the defining question of our digital era: Are we utilizing artificial intelligence, or is it utilizing us?

This delicate boundary was recently explored by content creator Barış Özcan in a thought provoking analysis. He reminded us that the human brain inherently loves shortcuts, frequently defaulting to fast, intuitive thinking to bypass the exhausting strain of deliberate analysis. In an academic setting, the grueling process of an assignment is precisely what builds our cognitive muscles. In the corporate world, however, the emphasis shifts heavily toward the final output. Özcan outlines a crucial choice in how we work with these systems: we can become “Centaurs,” strategically dividing labor between human judgment and machine execution, or “Cyborgs,” fluidly co creating line by line where the boundaries blur. The true hazard lies in a third path: “sleeping at the wheel.” When our prompt shifts from “teach me how to do this” to “do this for me,” we stop exercising our critical faculties. We surrender our judgment, our unique voice, and our ability to discern nuance, gradually becoming passive passengers to the very tools we claim to manage.

This cognitive drift is not merely a theoretical concern; it is an empirical reality reshaping the modern workforce. A recent study highlighted by Fast Company illustrates this psychological toll, revealing that while AI drastically accelerates productivity, it is simultaneously triggering a severe erosion of professional self confidence. According to the data, half of all employees believe they rely too heavily on AI, and nearly 40% feel that this overreliance is actively dulling their intelligence and eroding their core skills. Most alarmingly, this figure spikes to an astonishing 46% among Gen Z workers. Handed immensely powerful tools without proper context, training, or strategic guardrails, an entire generation is trading its cognitive autonomy for raw speed, feeling increasingly incapable of functioning without a machine doing the heavy thinking for them.

For now, we remain suspended in an ambiguous relationship with AI, left with an existential question: “What are we to each other?” But one fundamental truth remains unchanged, in our systemic world, the poison is always in the dose. Life is an ongoing act of balancing on a razor thin tightrope. Stumbling while learning to walk that wire is entirely natural; however, overcorrecting and losing our balance completely means plunging into an abyss from which it is incredibly difficult to recover. The internet, social media, and now AI are uniquely powerful weapons that shape our global ecosystem. If we learn exactly where to aim them, and ensure we never pull the trigger on our own cognitive evolution, we can stop viewing AI as an existential threat. Instead, we can recognize it for what it truly should be: an incredibly intelligent companion helping us engineer our own opportunities and curate our own worlds. Psychologically, this feeling can be incredibly reassuring, making you feel less alone and almost as though someone is keeping you company. Yet, we must never forget that you must always remain in the driver’s seat. Whatever it is that you create, the skeleton may belong to AI, but the soul will always be entirely your own. Just like this piece.