You’ve probably noticed how easy it is to let AI handle the tedious tasks on your to-do list, from summarizing your emails and drafting your reports to analyzing your data. It feels like a productivity win. But Microsoft researcher Advait Sarkar has a provocative take on what that efficiency is actually costing you.
Sarkar’s work at Microsoft Research focuses on how AI tools affect the way we think, and his findings should give every entrepreneur pause. When we offload cognitive work to AI, we might be saving time, but we’re losing practice. Research shows that people using AI assistants produce less creative output, remember less of what they write, and apply less critical thinking to their work. As Sarkar puts it, we’ve become “middle managers for our own thoughts.”
The analogy he uses is striking: it’s as if we invented a cure for exercise and then wondered why we’re out of breath all the time.
The problem isn’t AI itself as much as it’s how we’re using it. Most AI tools are designed to be obedient, giving you answers rather than sharpening your questions. Sarkar’s team at Microsoft Research has been building something different: AI designed to push back. Their prototype introduces “provocations”—critiques, counterarguments, and alternatives that prompt the user to engage more deeply with their own thinking, not less.
For entrepreneurs, the implications are direct. The judgment calls that drive your business—when to pivot, who to hire, which market to serve—are exactly the kinds of decisions that require well-developed cognitive muscle. Delegating the thinking underneath those decisions to AI, over time, may quietly erode the very instincts you’re counting on.
Watch Sarkar’s TED Talk below for a deeper look at how AI can be redesigned to make us better thinkers rather than more dependent ones.
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