Your best performer stopped thinking. AI is hiding it perfectly.

Career · Leadership

By Feras Asakrieh · 5 min read · Issue #36

My son Rayan is 14. A few months ago, I gave him full access to AI.

I did it on purpose. AI is becoming the new literacy. I did not want him learning it at 25, behind everyone else. I wanted him to have an edge.

Rayan, 14, head down in his phone at the kitchen counter

Then dinner changed.

He started arguing with me. Not about curfew. About facts. About history. About things I actually know.

And every time, he had the same backup. "ChatGPT said."

He would read something, and it was true now. No pause. No question. The screen said it, so that settled it.

I sat there a little stunned. I gave him a tool to make him sharper. Instead I watched it do something else.

That Was the Mirror

Here is what hit me. AI did not make my son trust things too fast. He already did that. Quick to believe what he reads. Slow to question it.

The tool did not create that. It poured fuel on it.

That is the part nobody tells you. AI does not upgrade who you are. It amplifies who you already are. Give it to a careful thinker and they get sharper. Give it to someone who skips the thinking and they skip it faster, with more confidence.

AI is a mirror. It just hands you a louder version of your own habits.

Now Think About Your Office

Because the same thing is happening at work. You just cannot see it as easily, since everyone has a title and a straight face.

The dangerous person is not the one who looks lazy. It is the one who looks great.

They adopted AI fast. Their output went up. Their decks are cleaner. Their emails are quicker. On paper they are crushing it.

But somewhere in there, they stopped thinking. They ship what the machine hands them. And nobody notices, because the numbers went up.

Here is what it sounds like in their head:

"The AI said it, so it is probably right."

"I do not have time to check it, just send it."

"It sounds smart, so it is good enough."

"Everyone is moving fast, I cannot be the one who slows down."

"If it is wrong, I can blame the tool."

Read those again. Not one of them is thinking. Every one of them is renting judgment and calling it productivity.

How to Be the One It Makes Sharper

1. Argue with the machine before you trust it.

Treat every answer as a first draft, not a verdict. The moment AI hands you something, your job is to poke holes in it. Ask it, "what is weak about this answer?" Ask what it left out. My rule at home now, and at work, is simple. Nothing the screen says counts until you have pushed back on it once. The people who pull ahead are not the ones who prompt the fastest. They are the ones who question the best.

2. Form your own take first. Then check.

Do not open the tool with an empty head. Decide what you think first. Then use AI to test it, stretch it, or prove you wrong. Before I ask AI to draft a plan, I write my rough version in three bullets. Now I am editing from a point of view, not swallowing whatever it serves me. Thinking first keeps the muscle alive. Skipping straight to the answer lets it go soft.

3. Keep one thing you refuse to hand over.

Pick one skill that sits at the center of your value and keep doing it by hand. The writing. The final call. The client relationship. Whatever it is, protect it. For me it is the thinking behind my words. AI helps me move faster, but the point of view stays mine. When you outsource everything, you have nothing left that is yours. And a person with nothing of their own is easy to replace.

4. Add judgment on top. That is the whole job now.

Anyone can generate output. That part is free now. What is not free is knowing whether the output is any good. Taste. Judgment. Knowing what to keep and what to kill. That is your value. So stop competing on how much you can produce. Compete on how well you can decide. The world already has infinite output. It is starving for judgment.

Final Thoughts

I am not sorry I gave Rayan the tool. I would do it again tomorrow.

Because he did not just show me something about him. He showed me something about all of us.

The tool is going to find whatever is already in you and turn the volume up. Your curiosity or your laziness. Your judgment or your shortcuts. It does not care which. It just makes it louder.

So the real question was never whether AI is good or bad.

The real question is the one my 14-year-old handed me across the dinner table without knowing it.

When the machine gets louder, what does it turn up in you?

See you next Saturday.
Feras

Your best performer stopped thinking. AI is hiding it perfectly.

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