We've always outsourced thinking.
Cognitive offloading means using tools or the world around you to reduce mental effort. Lists, calculators and search all count. AI just widens what we can hand off.
Memory
Remembering For Us
Notes, calendars, runbooks
- Frees working memory
- Low risk if well kept
Calculation
Computing For Us
Calculators, scripts, queries
- Faster and more accurate
- Still need to sanity-check
Reasoning
Thinking For Us
AI drafts, summaries, code
- New, and powerful
- The hardest to verify
Source: Trends in Cognitive Sciences ↗
Offload the load, not the understanding.