It is creeping into our daily lives. AI is making tasks faster, easier and more convenient than ever. But what human qualities are we losing in the process? Patrick Walsh, our Chief Commercial Officer, asks whether AI dependence is making us ruder, less curious and less willing to think for ourselves, and poses a few questions worth considering along the way.
GenAI is brilliant, efficient… and now it is comforting us into rudeness, dullness and inertia. It is not “AI will destroy us”, it is more like, “is AI quietly eroding our human qualities?” We might not notice the shift until it shows up in our own habits, when our manners, attention or curiosity start to slip.
When technology changes how we work, it usually happens quickly and visibly. But some shifts are subtle. They creep in through habits, tiny shortcuts and moments of convenience, until they have rewired the way we think, act and relate to one another. AI is already reshaping our behaviour in ways that might not feel dramatic, but may prove more significant than we expect.
The first place you can see this is in how we behave toward it. Our manners with AI often swing to the extremes. Sometimes we treat it with more courtesy than we show other people. Other times, we are far ruder to it than we would ever be face-to-face. Both behaviours tell us something about how technology is shaping our interactions, and neither is harmless
Many of us say “please” and “thank you” to ChatGPT or other AI assistants because it feels polite, even though we know they do not need it. Yet in our interactions with real people, especially online, those courtesies can be the first thing to disappear. Some articles even argue that AI politeness wastes energy, making “manners” a surprising environmental hazard. If we are happy to be polite to an algorithm, why is it so much harder with each other?
Question to ponder: Could our politeness to AI be coming at the expense of people and the planet?
At the other extreme, I have found myself shouting at ChatGPT, even being rude. There is no face, no consequences, no empathy required. But here’s the thing: this attitude leaks. If we do not practise basic politeness with GenAI, are we slowly losing it with humans too?
Question to ponder: If we stop showing courtesy where it feels optional, will we remember how to show it where it is essential?
Our relationship with information is shifting too.
With ChatGPT (or any LLM) in your pocket, you no longer need to retain knowledge. Why memorise a recipe, a phone number, or even understand a contract clause when you can just ask? We are becoming experts in asking, not understanding. It is convenient, but what is it doing to our brains when we never need to store or retrieve information ourselves?
Question to ponder: If we stop remembering, will we also stop understanding?
AI answers instantly. No pause. No wrestling with the problem. We lean on it for brainstorming, writing, explaining… until our mental muscles weaken. We still get the output, but did we do the thinking?
Question to ponder: When was the last time you truly worked through a problem without an AI safety net?
And then there is our willingness to make the effort at all.
Why strain my brain when I can outsource the strain? In a work context, that efficiency may be justified. But when it creeps into social life and personal decision-making, it dulls curiosity and initiative. We risk becoming less informed, less engaged, less interesting.
Question to ponder: If the answer is always one prompt away, what happens to the questions we never think to ask?
Need a summary, a poem, or a lesson plan? AI will do it instantly. But there is a difference between making life easier and making ourselves idle. When we habitually skip the effort, we also skip the growth.
Question to ponder: Are we optimising our work, or just optimising ourselves out of it?
We laughed at the humans in hover chairs, sipping endless drinks while screens did the thinking. But we are inching closer. Dependent, passive, and scrolling through life. It is not just physical laziness, it is mental atrophy too.
Question to ponder: Are we heading for hover chairs, or are we already sitting in them?
This is not a warning about destructive robots. It is more subtle, sticky: Are we nurturing tiny habits that, in aggregate, dull our curiosity, our effort, our care?
These are the questions worth pausing for, before convenience turns into complacency. I’d say, by all means let AI help, but hold on to the thoughtfulness, attention and empathy that keep your interactions, and your decisions, human.
These are just some of the questions, and there are many more, that we explore with leaders in our training at Decoded. Understanding how AI is shaping human behaviour is not just an interesting debate, it is a critical skill for leading teams, shaping strategy and making better decisions in a technology-driven world.
Lead the change before it leaves you behind: https://decoded.com/courses
Image accreditation: Philip Oroni (2024) for Unpslash.com+. Last accessed on 14th August 2025. Available here.
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