Lately, I’ve noticed something unsettling: younger people I encounter — cashiers, students, and others — struggle to do relatively simple math in their heads. Even simple addition, much less the standard kind of calculating you’d do to leave a tip, seem to trip them up. Oddly, they often seem unembarrassed by it, suggesting it’s normal for their age cohort.
I’ll admit I hold a bit of a double standard here. Their similar inability to write in cursive doesn’t faze me, I think because it seems so much less practical a skill to know. Math is such a daily practical tool that I can’t help but feel they’re at a disadvantage without it.
I’m not pointing fingers at them, though. If anything, it’s unconscionable to me that these bright, capable individuals passed through years of schooling without adults emphasizing the enduring value of this skill. Yes, calculators are great. And yes, having them in school makes sense. But allowing the calculators to replace learning basic math? Where were the adults?
Today we’re seeing a similar loss in intellectual capacity with the use of AI, specifically large language models (LLMs). A spate of recent articles has documented how the use of LLMs can have the effect of reducing the writing and thinking capacity of both students and adult workers (I post references to articles on AI at https://news.futureofai.org). Of course it has this effect.
The parallel is striking — where calculators have systematically dulled numerical fluency, AI is most assuredly chiseling away at our ability to think and write independently. This doesn’t mean we stop using them. I, for one, am having amazing conversations with LLMs that allow me to do the kind of conversational research I’ve wanted to do my whole life. But let’s be real: we need to describe the calculator effect AI is having and thoughtfully address it for the benefit of upcoming generations.
I love that the word "generative" has come into more everyday use thanks to "generative AI." Beyond its obvious link to creation or generation, it carries a deeper resonance from Erik Erikson’s stages of life. He described generativity as a phase of adulthood where we care about helping the next generation learn and grow, passing down knowledge and capacity — not for personal gain but for the benefit of those coming after us, as in the old adage about societies flourish when the older generations plant trees whose shade they’ll never enjoy. It’s incumbent upon those of us old enough to grasp the value of mental math and writing to cultivate reasoning minds that can communicate clearly with others. This feels not just important but essential — crucial, even. Let’s remember that education should be "generative" — a topic I explore in a longer blog post here.
In the 1960 film adaptation of The Time Machine, the time traveler arrives in a distant future where one group of people, the Eloi, have become so dependent on a machine-sustained world that they’ve lost the ability to think or question for themselves. This doesn’t feel so far-fetched anymore.
