Is AI Weightlessness for the Mind?

On 16 April 2007, 210 miles above Earth, Sunita Williams taped race bib 14,000 to a treadmill in the Zvezda module of the International Space Station and ran the Boston Marathon. Bungee cords held her in place.

The station was moving at about 17,500 miles/hour. She finished in roughly 4 hours and 24 minutes, the first marathon completed in orbit.

Sunita Williams was fighting what orbit does to the body.

With prolonged exposure to microgravity (weightlessness), weight‑bearing bones can lose around 1–2% of their density/month. These rates FAR exceed typical age‑related loss on Earth. This is why astronauts spend roughly 2 hours/day strapped into exercise equipment.

The body responds to missing demands by removing capacity it no longer needs. AI may create a similar problem for the mind.

MIT Media Lab found that people writing with ChatGPT showed markedly lower brain engagement and consistently weaker performance than those writing without it. Early studies have also reported reduced markers of cognitive effort and links between heavy AI use and weaker critical thinking.

In experimental settings, when people rely on AI for a period of time, they tend to perform worse and are more likely to give up sooner when AI assistance is removed.

It boils down to this: are you using AI to complete old work faster, or to attempt work that was previously out of reach?

Most current use appears focused on speeding up existing tasks. This is important work and we must pursue it. But it should not be our sole focus. Efficiency creates a trade-off where you finish more tasks while practicing fewer skills.

A different pattern emerges when AI expands the size of the problem. A scientist using AI to explore thousands of possible protein structures is taking on a challenge that was previously impractical.

The tool can either remove the effort that builds capability or help you carry a heavier load, creating new capacity and new skills.

That distinction matters because work itself keeps changing. Jobs are mutating faster than ever before in the history of knowledge work. What endures are the traits that help people adapt: curiosity, engagement, and resilience.

These qualities are built through effort. They require resistance.

Bone grows stronger under weight. Minds do too.

Avoiding AI is not a solution. The technology is already changing expectations around speed and output. The goal is to use it without removing the struggle that creates growth.

→ Ask AI for guidance before answers.

→ Draft your view first, then use AI to challenge it.

→ Keep parts of your thinking unassisted.

→ Use AI as a research partner, not a replacement for judgment.

→ Increase ambition, not only output.

AI can calculate, synthesize, and summarize. It cannot care about the outcome or decide what is worth pursuing.

The responsibility for growth remains human. It remains yours. Until next time, Ram — 

Ram Srinivasan

MIT Alum | Author, The Conscious Machine | Global Future of Work and AI Adoption Leader published in Business Insider, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, MIT Executive Viewpoints and more.

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Ram Srinivasan currently serves as an Innovation Strategist and Transformation Leader, authoring groundbreaking works including "The Conscious Machine" and the upcoming "The Substrate Shift"

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