Cognitive Overload in the Age of AI

I’ve personally found AI Assistants to be incredible tools in my life. ChatGPT helps me with everything from managing my ADHD to curing my plants. The opportunities are endless, and I find myself incessantly thinking of more ways AI can offload my stress.

I feel its limitlessness.

My brain never stops generating new ways I can expand my mind and optimize my life. And that’s where I feel a tinge of concern. I have the feeling that I’m running so quickly that I can’t slow down. And I wonder, is this really good for me? 

When Everything Becomes Accessible

I’ve been listening to countless presentations about how AI is transforming education. What is the future of learning in the age of AI? Will we continue writing in the same way? Or are lecture-based classrooms and traditional essays already becoming archaic?

I love writing. But I had stopped writing in recent months. I think I felt as though everything that could be said is being said, or is immediately accessible. I didn't consciously think it, but I felt the question, "What's the point?" 

These days, when I find a topic I’m curious about, I don’t just pick up a book. I ask ChatGPT for the top thought leaders, interviews, and podcasts, then feed it into Notebook LM, which summarizes the key insights into a 15-minute podcast (40 if I’m really interested). I plan to read their full books… but will I? And if I do, will they already be outdated? Nearly every topic today shifts as fast as AI evolves.

Every industry is transforming: education, technology, psychology, etc. And as I try to understand just one concept like cognitive overload, I feel it happening to me in real time. I feel excited and overwhelmed. I want to keep learning, but at some point, I inevitably shut down. There’s too much to process. So much information, so much access. And where does it all go?

Collective Overwhelm

This week, I was teaching a group of loan officers about the role of empathy in the age of AI, and it struck me that regardless of our age or technology usage, we’re in a collective experience of overwhelm. Some had never opened ChatGPT; others use it hourly. But all of them said they felt overwhelmed. 

This is a common experience today. In our latest NextGen Homebuyer Report, over half of respondents said they couldn’t make major financial decisions because they were overwhelmed.

It’s not just us. It’s systemic.

The Extended Mind

Philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers once described humans as “natural-born cyborgs.” Their theory of the “extended mind” suggests that our cognition isn’t confined to the brain, but it extends into the tools we use. When we jot a note on paper or gesture while speaking, we’re offloading part of our thinking into the world.

AI is simply the latest (and most powerful) extension of that idea. We are offloading cognition at unprecedented speed.

This cognitive offloading frees us from mental clutter. We can remember less, calculate faster, and focus on creative or strategic tasks. But it also creates new risks: cognitive laziness, skill atrophy, and passive engagement. The more we trust these tools, the less we may exercise the muscles of memory, critical thinking, and deep focus.

I know this tension well. I never had a great memory, so AI has transformed my ability to follow up on meetings or remember creative ideas. AI helps me do more, but it can also feed my desire to know everything. Instantly. It rewards me with a hit of dopamine for every question answered. And that’s where I pause: how do I use this power without losing the part of me that loves (and needs) to wrestle with uncertainty and sit in the not-knowing?

From Consuming to Creating

Here’s where I’ve landed for now:
AI can extend my mind, but it can’t integrate what I learn.
I can take in information, but I need to process it.
And I think that’s where creative expression and community become essential.

As I've contemplated this challenge of cognitive overload, I realized that for me, I need to write in order to process. I was texting a friend about this and my voice-to-text mistakenly wrote "writhing" instead of "writing." But that's the answer. I need to writhe with the information to process it.

And I need to talk about what I’m learning. I sent my Notebook LM podcast to my brother, and we ended up having a long conversation about it. For the first time that day, I wasn’t just consuming ideas; I was processing them with someone. 

The Power of Two-Way Dialogue

In a world of cognitive overload, we need fewer one-way keynotes and more two-way conversations. Fewer slides, more dialogue. That’s why I prefer facilitating workshops over keynotes, spaces where we can wrestle with ideas. Real learning and real connection happen when we think together, not just when we consume alone.

If we’re not careful, we risk replacing human connection with endless loops of information, which can be a digital echo chamber of efficient emptiness. But if we treat AI as a starting point, not the sum of our thinking, we can reclaim the time and space to turn information into meaning. 

Still, this is an evolving conversation, and I continue to wonder: 

In this new era of limitless knowledge, how do we create systems (personally and in the workplace) that turn offloading into understanding? And how do we ensure the tools that extend our minds also deepen our connections?