Thinking is situated within the social, physical, and digital environment in which we exist. The discussion about how people create with generative AI is commonly focused on outputs: how accurate, how fast, how human-like, how safe, and how fair. Hidden beneath these concerns, lies fundamental questions of how these tools will impact how we think. When we create, whether via writing, drawing, programming or beyond, our activity helps us to organize our thoughts and to express what we know. What happens to how we think, what we know, and how we are understood by others when we alter our cognitive process with LLMs? And what do these alterations mean for how human-computer systems should be designed to support learning, self actualization, and work?

This topic has haunted me ever since the LLM hype phase began. In the fall of 2022, I began an NoC-supported project, Codesigning Generative Futures project where I first introduced my concerns about generative AI impact on human thinking and capacity. I have continued this work through a series of talks that I am now developing into publications and courses. For instance, this past September, I spoke about “Educational Chatbots: Something New or History Repeating?” at the "Research in the Era of Generative AI: A Hybrid Symposium for Design Justice Thinkers." Subsequently, I was invited to adapt the talk into a publication for the journal, Critical AI. Similarly, I have been teaching graduate level courses on generative AI and its impacts.