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Research Café: Thinking With AI or Thinking Less?

November 12 @ 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm EST
In this Research Cafe, we can kind of pick up where my recent talk on AI and empathy left off and open it into a broader conversation. More of us are using AI for various assistive needs, work, etc.
Thinking With AI or Thinking Less? Exploring Fluid Dependence and the Future of Human Cognition
Artificial intelligence can assist us across an extraordinary range of activities from writing, analyzing, and organizing to creating and solving problems with remarkable speed. Yet amid both the excitement and contention surrounding this technological advance, we may be overlooking a larger shift, what generational theorists Strauss and Howe might describe as a Turning or a period where established patterns begin to change due to upheavals, events, and where something fundamentally different begins to emerge in society as a result.
This Research Café discusses the burgeoning issue of “fluid dependence” and when AI engagement creates a cognitive friction between our increasing reliance on it for cognitive tasks and its potential for innovative practice. This Cafe invites faculty to explore its implications for learning, critical thinking, creativity, memory, and professional development. Together, we can consider whether AI is truly extending human cognition, or slowly replacing portions of it, or perhaps doing both.
Four discussion questions
  1. What cognitive tasks have you begun turning over to AI that you previously performed yourself, and have you noticed any subtle or stark changes in how you think, learn, or work as a result?
  2. At what point does AI assistance become AI reliance? How would we recognize when productive engagement has crossed into fluid dependence? [This Thu is the centerpoint of the discussion]
  3. What might we be gaining, and potentially losing, when AI performs portions of the thinking, struggle, reflection, and problem-solving that traditionally helped us build knowledge and cognitive capacity?
  4. Looking ahead, how can educators harness AI’s ability to extend human cognition while intentionally preserving the cognitive skills and distinctly human capacities we do not want to diminish?

Dr. Rodney J. Luster is a researcher, professor, and Texas licensed professional counselor with more than 20 years in higher education, clinical practice, and consulting. He is University Doctoral Research Chair managing the University of Phoenix’s Center for Leadership and Entrepreneurial Research and is Graduate Faculty in Yorkville University’s Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology program. His recent research asks whether practice with AI personas can help counseling students build empathic skill, work he presented at Yorkville’s Funding to Impact event and the APA’s 2026 convention. He founded InspireThought LLC private practice, and maintains his own blog series More Than a Feeling blog for Psychology Today.

Details

  • Date: November 12
  • Time:
    1:00 pm - 2:00 pm EST