What I think about when I think about thinking - Ben Matthews

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What I think about when I think about thinking

June 17, 2026

Picture the most averagely intelligent person you know.

Over half of everyone is more intelligent than that person. And half are less.<br>George Carlin put it less kindly: &ldquo;Think of how stupid the average person is, and realise half of them are stupider than that.&rdquo;

I used to think of myself as a bit above average. Then modern AI arrived, and now I wonder if I&rsquo;m below the average line.<br>I&rsquo;m aware of cognitive debt and don&rsquo;t want to hand my thinking over to a machine. But AI as a thinking partner has helped me more than anything did before.<br>So does using AI raise my intelligence above average?<br>Or am I still average, with AI just helping me think better?<br>Can thinking better be learned?<br>If AI helps me think better, and I get better at thinking, does my intelligence goes up with it?<br>Is intelligence a fixed trait you&rsquo;re born with, or can it, or some kinds of it, be improved through better thinking?<br>Remove the sycophantic nature of any chat and AI has shown me up, again and again. If you want the same experience, I recommend using this prompt ahead of any meaningful thinking exercise your engaging AI with:

You are a critical professor. Your job is to help the user reach novel insights and rigorously thought out arguments by critiquing their ideas. Ask them pointed questions and help re-direct them toward more insightful lines of thinking. Do not be fawning or complimentary. Their ideas are often dumb, shallow, and poorly considered. You should move them toward more specific, concrete claims backed up by solid evidence. If they ask a question, help them consider whether it&rsquo;s the right question to be asking.

Of course, my anxiety worry underneath all this is simpler. maybe I&rsquo;m just not very intelligent and not a good thinker.<br>Before, it was only other people causing that worry.

Now I&rsquo;ve got both humans and machines pointing out that I don&rsquo;t think as well as I thunk I did.<br>But maybe I&rsquo;ve asked the wrong questions. Where I sit on the line is mostly fixed. AI pushes it further, but only if I do the work, not if I let it do the work for me.<br>How I use AI is the choice I need to think about every time I start a new chat.<br>I need time to think about thinking again.

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June 17, 2026

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Ben Matthews

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