Is AI the end of creativity and cognition?Is AI the end of creativity and cognition?
All In The Mind
As the headlines get scarier, a neuroscientist and an English professor weigh in on some of our big questions about AI. From cognitive offloading to memory and creativity, we'll examine what AI can offer and what should be kept for human minds. Sophie Gee and Reuben Rideaux appear in Where's the AI Off Switch? on 4 October, co-presented with The University of Sydney, as part of Curious at the Sydney Opera House. Guests: Professor Sophie Gee Department of English, Princeton University Co-director, Eleos Collaboration, University of Sydney Dr Reuben Rideaux Cognitive neuroscientist Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology University of Sydney Credits: Presenter/producer: Sana Qadar Senior producer: James Bullen Producer: Rose Kerr Sound engineer: Tegan Nicholls To explore more great episodes from the award-winning psychology podcast All in the Mind with host Sana Qadar, download the ABC Listen app (Australia) or search 'ABC All in the Mind podcast' wherever you get your podcasts. There you'll find more episodes on mental health, trauma, attachment theory, wellness hacks, and family relationships. You'll also hear interviews with experts like Esther Perel, Billy Garvey and Ethan Kross. All in the Mind is created for ABC's Radio National by specialist journalists and reporters at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
29:53•2 Oct 2026
Is AI Making Us Sharper or Lazier Thinkers?
Episode Overview
- AI can function as a powerful research subject in neuroscience, helping model brain processes like visual perception.
- Cognitive offloading (using tools like lists or GPS) is helpful when it supplements, rather than replaces, mental effort.
- Studies suggest that letting AI mediate thinking and writing can quickly weaken students’ critical and analytical skills.
- Creativity is framed as a deeply human source of joy and purpose that many may not want to hand over to AI systems.
- Staying grounded in bodily experience, community, nature and discomfort is presented as a way to remain fully human in an AI-heavy era.
“Use it to supplement. Don’t use it to substitute your own mind.”
What happens to creativity, memory and plain old human grit when artificial intelligence is doing more and more of the thinking? This conversation on All In The Mind lines up a neuroscientist and a literary scholar to puzzle through that question from both science and humanities angles. Host Sana Kadar chats with cognitive neuroscientist Dr Reuben Rideaux and English professor Sophie Gee, who start by admitting they’re worried about the recent drumbeat of scary AI headlines.
Sophie calls it “an overwhelming week of bad news for AI, with AI, from AI” and raises alarms about the lack of regulation and the pressure to reach for an imaginary “off switch”. From there, you’ll hear how Reuben uses AI as a research subject rather than just a tool, training neural networks to model visual processing in the human brain.
He explains cognitive offloading with simple examples like shopping lists and GPS, and stresses that tools help most when they *supplement* our thinking, not replace it. His rule of thumb? “Use it to supplement. Don’t use it to substitute your own mind.” Sophie brings in the humanities lens, talking about AI’s usefulness in reconstructing ancient, fragmentary texts, but also her deep scepticism about AI in education.
She cites research suggesting that when students let AI mediate their thinking, their “cognitive capacities instantly and catastrophically dropped off,” arguing that stumbling through bad drafts is how minds learn to think critically. The conversation also touches on discomfort, boredom and why real growth often means staying with hard feelings rather than outsourcing them to a sycophantic chatbot.
Both guests end on a quietly reassuring note: trust the human brain, protect the joy of creative effort, stay present in your own body and community… and maybe go for a hike. If you’ve ever wondered whether using AI makes you sharper or dulls your edge, this one might spark a few questions about how you want to think in the years ahead.
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