What Is Artificial Intelligence? How It Differs from Human Intelligence
It applies math. If we simplify it: it’s still just a calculator.
22 March 2025
1 792
1 792
Hi, I'm Richard. On this blog, I share thoughts, personal stories — and what I'm working on. I hope this article brings you some value.
We Don't Think, We Just Consume.
Critical thinking vs algorithmic consumption
Listen to this article
0:00 / 0:00
Lately, I've been noticing something new in job interviews—candidates come in "prepared," but in a strange way. They get an hour to prepare, and they use it to pull as much information as possible from ChatGPT. Then they confidently present it to me. They mention a metric that, according to them, is crucial for evaluating advertising performance. But when I ask them what the metric actually tells us, they don’t know. They have no idea how to calculate it.
I've never had so many interviews where I had to teach candidates the meaning of a key metric in online advertising. Never.
But let’s be clear—this is not the same as when calculators were introduced. You can work with someone who doesn’t understand logarithms. But you can’t seriously discuss or collaborate with someone who doesn’t even understand which two numbers to divide to get meaningful insight in advertising. You just can’t.
And it’s not just interviews. More and more, I feel like real thinking is fading away. People don’t form their own ideas anymore; they just adopt prepackaged opinions that flood them from all directions. Information is instantly accessible, and it requires no effort from us.
Many believe they have broad knowledge because they follow multiple sources. But I have my doubts. Real thinking takes effort. Thinking deeply about something means spending time questioning, challenging established views, and arriving at your own conclusions.
When Even Criticism Is Just Another Form of Consumption
One of the strange things about our time is that even criticism has turned into a kind of consumption.
I see it clearly in debates on serious social issues – take Covid, for example. Entire crowds jumped into criticizing one expert opinion or another, often with great confidence, while having only a shallow understanding of the topic.
They felt the need to criticize, to take a stand – but without having arguments of their own. So they just adopted someone else’s critical take.
We repeat another person’s objections and feel like we’ve been thinking. But what we’ve really done is just accepted a different ready-made opinion. That’s not critical thinking.
I get the sense it’s connected to a fear of independent thinking.
Continue reading
Enter your email to unlock this article and join the newsletter. You can unsubscribe anytime.
Summary
Job candidates present AI-extracted metrics without understanding fundamentals. People adopt pre-packaged opinions and repeat others' critical frameworks. Genuine thinking has become rare. The solution is simple and uncomfortable: allocate time for reflection, resist premature opinions, and examine where your thoughts actually come from.
Common questions about this topic?
How is AI affecting the quality of job candidates?
In the article, a new pattern is observed in interviews: candidates arrive prepared with AI-extracted metrics and terminology but cannot explain what the numbers actually mean or how to calculate them. This is not the same as using a calculator — you can work with someone who does not understand logarithms, but you cannot collaborate with someone who does not understand which two numbers to divide to get a meaningful insight. The fundamental understanding is missing.
What is the difference between consuming information and actually thinking?
In the article, the distinction is clear: real thinking takes effort. It means spending time questioning, challenging established views, and arriving at your own conclusions. Consuming information means passively absorbing pre-packaged opinions that require no effort. Many people believe they have broad knowledge because they follow multiple sources, but following is not the same as thinking. The difference lies in whether you are creating understanding or merely receiving it.
How has criticism itself become a form of consumption?
In the article, this is illustrated through social debates — like those around Covid — where crowds confidently criticised expert opinions without having arguments of their own. They adopted someone else's critical framework and felt like they had been thinking. But repeating another person's objections is not critical thinking — it is just accepting a different ready-made opinion. The form changes but the passivity remains.
Why are people afraid of independent thinking?
Because real thinking carries social risk. In the article, this is connected to a fundamental dynamic: arriving at unpopular conclusions may lead to being misunderstood, disagreed with, or socially excluded. This is consistent with Asch's conformity experiments, where 74% of participants conformed to incorrect group opinions, and Noelle-Neumann's spiral of silence theory, where fear of isolation drives people to suppress minority views. Thinking outside the box is genuinely risky.
Does the speed of the internet make deep thinking harder?
Yes. In the article, the observation is that instant reactions are expected, and being slow means being outdated and therefore irrelevant. By the time someone reaches their own analysis, the internet has moved to a new topic. Research supports this: heavy smartphone users show diminished ability to interpret deeper meaning, and attention-capturing digital interfaces promote heuristic processing over sustained analysis. Speed and depth are in tension.
What can individuals do to think more independently?
In the article, the steps are deliberately small: give yourself time to think instead of reacting immediately. Do not rush to form an opinion just to have something to say. Ask yourself where your thoughts really come from — are they truly yours? These are not dramatic interventions but a conscious decision to step out of the pattern of consuming and repeating, even if it feels uncomfortable at first.
If you have any thoughts, questions, or feedback, feel free to drop me a message at mail@richardgolian.com.