AI Is Making Us Smarter Too

The overlooked side of the AI revolution

There is a lot of talk about how intelligent artificial intelligence is becoming. Every few months, the models get faster, more capable and more convincing. They can analyse data, write code, draft contracts, compose music, interpret images and hold conversations that would have seemed extraordinary only a few years ago.

But something else is happening at the same time, and I think it is much more interesting: we are getting smarter too.

I was reminded of that in a conversation with ChatGPT this morning. We were discussing a question involving timing and statistics. The AI gave me an explanation that, at first glance, sounded perfectly reasonable, but there was a flaw in the logic. The measurement boundary had quietly shifted backwards in time, which changed the apparent before-and-after comparison.

I spotted it.

ChatGPT acknowledged the mistake:

“You caught the exact temporal logic flaw faster than I did.”

My response was predictable enough:

“I’m still sharper than you.”

The exchange was amusing, but it also highlighted something important about our relationship with AI.

From answer machine to sparring partner

The popular narrative tends to frame AI development as a race between humans and machines. We ask when AI will become more intelligent than us, what jobs it will replace and whether people will eventually struggle to compete.

I increasingly think that is the wrong way to look at it. For many of us, AI is becoming something closer to an intellectual sparring partner.

When you use AI occasionally, it gives you answers. When you use it frequently, something different begins to happen. You start questioning those answers, noticing assumptions, challenging definitions and asking why a conclusion follows from the evidence. The conversation itself begins to sharpen your thinking.

That matters because intelligence is not simply about knowing things. It is also about recognising when something does not quite fit. AI is exceptionally good at constructing plausible explanations. Often those explanations are correct and sometimes they are brilliantly insightful, but occasionally the logic slips, a causal connection is assumed, or a time period is subtly redefined.

Because the explanation is usually articulate, the error can be surprisingly difficult to notice. That creates a new kind of intellectual exercise for the human on the other side of the conversation.

You are no longer simply asking, “What is the answer?” You begin asking whether the answer actually makes sense, what assumptions are being made, whether the comparison is valid and what evidence would disprove the conclusion.

Those are extremely valuable habits of thought.

Why challenge matters

There is another important difference between AI and most human advisers: you can challenge it relentlessly.

Ask a colleague the same question ten times and eventually you may test the friendship. Ask an AI ten times and it will happily reconsider the problem from ten different angles. You can tell it you do not believe the answer, ask it to argue the opposite case, find flaws in its own reasoning, explain the issue differently or reassess the conclusion when new evidence appears.

Used properly, that process is not intellectual outsourcing. It is intellectual training.

There is a danger, of course. If people simply accept whatever AI tells them, the opposite happens. Critical thinking becomes weaker rather than stronger. A confident machine can become an extraordinarily persuasive source of bad reasoning.

The dividing line may therefore be less about who has access to AI and more about how they use it. Passive users may become dependent on it. Active users may become considerably more capable because of it.

The strongest combination

The best relationship is probably one in which neither side is treated as infallible.

AI has advantages humans simply cannot match. It can process enormous quantities of information, recall obscure details, compare alternatives instantly and operate without fatigue.

Humans still bring something different: experience, context, instinct, scepticism and judgement. We also retain the ability to notice when the machine has quietly moved the goalposts.

The future may therefore be less about artificial intelligence replacing human intelligence and more about the emergence of something combined.

A human who thinks alone may be capable. An AI working alone may be extraordinarily capable. But a curious, sceptical human working with AI, constantly challenging it and testing its logic, could be considerably more powerful than either.

Perhaps that is the real intelligence revolution underway.

The machines are getting smarter.

And if we use them properly, so are we.