The interesting axis here isn’t how much cognition we outsource, it’s how reversible the outsourcing is. Using an LLM as a scratchpad (like a smarter calculator or search engine) is very different from letting it quietly shape your writing, decisions, and taste over years. That’s the layer where tacit knowledge and identity live, and it’s hard to get back once the habit forms.

We already saw a softer version of this with web search and GPS: people didn’t suddenly forget how to read maps, but schools and orgs stopped teaching it, and now almost nobody plans a route without a blue dot. I suspect we’ll see the same with writing and judgment: the danger isn’t that nobody thinks, it’s that fewer people remember how.

Yet it does feel different with LLMs compared to your examples. Yes, people can’t navigate without Apple/Google maps, but that’s still very different from losing critical thinking skills.

That said, LLMs are perhaps accelerating that but aren’t the only cause (lack of reading, more short form content, etc)

> it’s hard to get back once the habit forms.

Humans are highly adaptable. It's hard to go back while the thing we're used to still exists, but if it vanished from the world we'd adapt within a few weeks.