Part 5: AI, Executive Function, and the Risk of Outsourcing Thinking

A New Layer of the Attention Economy

The digital environment shaping our attention did not stop evolving with smartphones and social media. Over the past few years, another powerful tool has entered the conversation: artificial intelligence. Unlike earlier technologies that primarily captured attention, AI systems offer something different, instant answers.

Need help drafting an email? AI can write it. Organizing ideas or solving a problem? AI is ready to assist. Figuring out how to handle family drama? AI is your therapist.

The speed and convenience of these tools are remarkable. But they also raise an important question. When technology becomes capable of doing more and more of the cognitive work for us, how does that change the way we think?

Technology as a Tool

To be clear, technology itself is not the problem.

Used responsibly, AI can be a powerful tool. At Aurora, we’ve incorporated AI in ways that improve efficiency and strengthen operations. AI tools help us streamline documentation, maintain compliance standards, and manage administrative systems that once consumed enormous amounts of time.

These tools free clinicians to focus more of their energy on the work that matters most, serving clients and supporting families.

Used thoughtfully, tools like these can free up time and cognitive resources from menial tasks like auditing session notes. The concern is when these tools begin to replace thinking. We already know that environments shape attention, problem solving, and learning. But what happens when powerful problem-solving technology is introduced during childhood or adolescence, before the prefrontal cortex has had a chance to fully develop?

Cognitive Capacity and Limited Resources

Human cognition operates within limits. Our ability to process information depends on the availability of attentional resources associated with working memory and fluid intelligence.

Working memory allows us to hold information in mind long enough to analyze it, conceptualize it, and generate solutions. These processes are essential for executive functioning and complex decision-making.

But these resources are limited. When attentional resources are occupied or bypassed, cognitive engagement changes. If technology consistently performs the thinking steps that once required effort, the brain may receive fewer opportunities to practice those processes. Over time, the question becomes whether convenience begins to come at the cost of cognitive endurance.

The Difference Between Assistance and Substitution

Tools that assist thinking can be valuable. For example, calculators, allow us to perform complex calculations efficiently. Word processors help writers organize ideas more clearly. However, these tools typically operate after foundational skills are already established.

A student still learns arithmetic before using a calculator. A writer still develops the ability to construct arguments before relying on editing tools. When AI systems generate answers instantly, the sequence shifts.

Instead of: problem > effort > solution;

The process becomes: problem > answer.

When this happens consistently, the cognitive processes that normally occur between the problem and the answer receives less practice.

Those processes, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, are exactly the processes that define executive functioning.

Why This Matters for Professional Work

Many professional fields rely heavily on these cognitive capacities.

In behavior analysis, clinicians must observe patterns of behavior, generate hypotheses, evaluate multiple variables, and make decisions in complex environments where answers are rarely obvious.

The nature of this work doesn’t benefit from instant solutions. It requires sustained attention, working memory, intentional reasoning, and consideration of third and fourth order effects.

If professionals begin to rely on external systems to perform the cognitive work that once happened internally, the risk is not simply technological dependence. The risk is the gradual weakening of the cognitive muscles that support professional judgment.

The goal is not to avoid technology, but to ensure that technology does not replace the thinking of which our profession depends.

A Question of Stewardship

We are living in environments that increasingly reduce friction, environments designed to make information, stimulation, and solutions available instantly.

Convenience is not inherently harmful. But when friction disappears entirely, so does the effort that strengthens cognitive capacity.

This raises an important question for educators, parents, clinicians, and leaders. What responsibilities do we have to protect the development of the thinking skills that technology now makes optional?

Looking Ahead

Technology will continue to evolve. Artificial intelligence will become more capable, more integrated, and more present in everyday life.

The question is not whether we will use these tools. Of course we will. The question is whether we will use them intentionally and responsibly.

As behavior analysts, we understand that environments shape behavior. The environments we create at work, at home, and in education, will influence how the next generation learns to think, solve problems, and engage with the world.

In the 6th and final piece of this series, I will bring together the ideas shared thus far and explore the broader responsibility we share in shaping the environments that shape us.

When does technology stop supporting thinking and start replacing it?

References

• Cowan, N. (2010). The magical mystery four: How is working memory capacity limited, and why? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(1), 51–57.

• Halford, G. S., Cowan, N., & Andrews, G. (2007). Separating cognitive capacity from knowledge: A new hypothesis.Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11(6), 236–242.

• Jaeggi, S. M., Buschkuehl, M., Jonides, J., & Perrig, W. J. (2008). Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(19), 6829–6833.

• Ward, A. F., Duke, K., Gneezy, A., & Bos, M. (2017). Brain drain: The mere presence of one's own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2(2), 140–154.

• Chiossi, F., et al. (2023). Short-form video platforms and prospective memory. (Study on context-switching and memory recall).

Inspiration for this series

• Diary of a CEO Podcast. Brain Rot Emergency: These Internal Documents Prove They're Controlling You.

• Jonathan Haidt – research and writing on childhood development and the shift from play-based to phone-based childhood.

Transparency Note

This series was written by the author. Artificial intelligence tools were used in a limited capacity to assist with editing, structural organization, and clarity of expression. All ideas, interpretations, and conclusions presented here are my own.