We are the last generation to remember a world before generative AI. Our children won't know what it was like to write an essay without wondering if a machine could do it better, or to make a decision without algorithmic guidance whispering in their ear. This makes us accountable for something unprecedented: designing the mental infrastructure in which future minds will develop.
Agency is what keeps us from running on cognitive autopilot. Artificial intelligence now offers to do much of that work for us. With a single prompt, we can receive elegant summaries and polished solutions that are so smooth and immediate that they can (and often do) lull us into submission. If we aren't careful, we risk becoming passengers in our own intellectual journey, letting the machine set the course.