Millions — Especially Gen Z — Are Letting AI Ruin Their Life
A 1960 Twilight Zone Episode Already Showed Us How This Ends
I’m sure most have heard that college students are becoming dumber due to AI use. It’s not just college students, it’s a whole generation that is getting dumbed down.
As I’ve written about extensively, these LLMs are great tools, but letting them live your life for you is the impetus of the technocratic revolution.
These times have been warned about, and in tomorrow’s piece, I’ll dive into the esoteric history behind our moment in history. Fortunately, there’s also a TV episode — which some of you may remember — that shows what happens when humans surrender their autonomy.
For this, let’s go back to the vault and to an old classic: The Twilight Zone, and examine the episode known as Nick of Time.
Without further ado, let’s dive right in.
In This Article, You’ll Learn
Why 62% of executives now let algorithms overrule their own judgment
The forgotten Twilight Zone episode that predicted our AI moment
The difference between two nearly identical prompts
What “cognitive offloading” is quietly doing to Gen Z’s ability to think
How Genesis, Prometheus, and the Anunnaki all point to the same warning
The Mystic Seer
“Nick of Time” (Season 2, Episode 7) stars a young William Shatner, playing the character Don Carter.
Don is a newlywed who becomes obsessed with a diner fortune-telling machine topped with a sinister devil bobblehead known as The Mystic Seer, allowing the machine to dictate his life. The Mystic Seer spits out simple “yes” or “no” answers, and Don lets it dictate his movements, their choices, and destination.
What makes the bobblehead so powerful is that it gets some events right.
Don did get the job as the seer said. He and his wife almost got hit by a car as the seer said — and their car was fixed right on time as the seer said. So why not listen to the seer? As you can imagine, Don can’t make any decision without consulting the seer.
The spell of the seer is broken when Don’s wife reminds him that they are free to live their life however they want, and Don chooses to accept the uncertainty ahead.
This episode serves as a parallel for what we’re seeing with LLMs.
Delegation Creep
While classroom cheating gets the most headlines, “delegation creep” — the slow migration of authority from low-stakes tasks to core human judgments — is happening across multiple industries.
According to a survey published by The Register, 62% of corporate executives now use AI to make the majority of their decisions. 70% say they second-guess their own judgment when it conflicts with an AI recommendation.
This trend is happening all throughout the world:
Corporate Executives: Outsourcing long-term market strategy, pricing analysis, and product roadmaps to algorithms.
Healthcare Providers: Relying on triage and diagnostic algorithms to dictate complex medical treatment.
Everyday Micro-Decisions: Letting AI curate everything from daily schedules and meals to writing personal texts.
The data shows that surrendering human decision-making to AI is shifting into a widespread corporate and personal habit. This behavioral shift, known as “cognitive surrender,” happens because humans favor the path of least mental resistance.
The corporate piece is interesting because this can lead to LLM-initiated initiatives. That new road design, no longer designed by a human, but by an LLM. School and traffic routes, LLMs. What kind of mess can occur here?
What’s really occurring is that a generation of humans is outsourcing their autonomy to devices to live their lives; surrendering their autonomy to automations.
Behavioral scientists call this extreme outsourcing “cognitive offloading,” and a growing body of data shows that replacing small personal friction with AI algorithms leads to immediate skill degradation.
The Friction You Need
Every time a human negotiates a small problem — like coordinating multiple people’s schedules, budgeting for groceries, or figuring out what to cook with leftovers — the brain strengthens neural pathways related to memory, logic, and working under constraints.
When you write a difficult personal text, email a tough coworker, or organize a family event, you have to think about nuance, empathy, and tone.
A 2026 feature in Nature showed that over-reliance on automation rapidly atrophies cognitive proficiencies. Just as GPS weakened our spatial awareness and ability to read maps, using AI for daily logistics blunts basic reasoning and problem-solving skills.
Psychologists state that outsourcing personal communication can lead to an “erosion of introspection.” Instead of doing the internal emotional work required to handle tough or awkward situations, people default to a sanitized, algorithmic script.
Going back to school and education, the concern is that many young people are using these AIs. Data reveal that 20% to 24% of all US adults now use AI daily, a figure that rises to 42% among Gen Z consumers, who outsource an average of 8 discrete daily tasks to algorithmic tools.
Meal Planning: 18% of adults use AI to plan meals, design grocery lists, and budget meals.
Shopping & Consumer Choices: 20% of adults rely on chatbots for product recommendations and comparing prices.
Information & Current Events: 35% of US households let AI act as their primary information filter, while 20% of teens use AI chatbots to curate their news.
Brainstorming & Logistics: 57% of Americans use AI to handle routine brainstorming and micro-planning tasks.
Because Gen Z and younger users are using AI chatbots to make micro-judgments about how to handle an interpersonal conflict or manage their time, they are failing to build basic life confidence.
They get the successful output, without the underlying cognitive growth.
This is the key right here: the output without the input, without the growth.
But Franklin — you’ve mentioned how LLMs are powerful. How can we use them without becoming too reliant on them?
Here’s where we meet the following ideas: delegation vs substitution.
Delegation vs. Substitution
The following scenario shows the best way to use LLMs. To see the difference between these two behaviors, imagine a professional managing a demanding workload.
This is personally how I’ve come to use LLMs as I’ve written in my work here.
Scenario 1: Delegation (AI as an Executive Assistant)
An architect has spent three days designing a new community center. They have personally calculated the structural layout, chosen the materials, and agonized over the aesthetic flow. Once the heavy thinking is done, they place it within an AI to organize and format the report.
The architect has done the heavy lifting of spatial reasoning, engineering, and creative problem-solving. The AI merely automated the tedious clerical task of formatting the report.
This is delegation — using the technology, instead of offloading to it.
Scenario 2: Substitution (AI as a Brain Replacement)
In substitution, the human completely steps out of the driver’s seat. They skip the struggle of critical thinking entirely and adopt the AI’s logic as their own.
The same architect is given the community center project. In this scenario, they immediately open an AI and prompt: “Design a community center for a plot of land in Seattle. Tell me what materials to use, how many rooms it should have, what the layout should be, and write the proposal for the city council.”
The architect takes the output, copies it onto their blueprint, and turns it in.
Not only is this cognitively lazy, but the architect bypassed the essential friction of their profession. No spatial design, didn’t address structural constraints, and didn’t develop an original creative vision. In this scenario, they substituted the machine’s judgment for their own.
This example reflects many of the works I’ve highlighted in my use of LLMs. You can either delegate remedial work or substitute your thinking.
This is an important warning for us.
The Apple in the Garden
I’m working on the question: are humans using technology — or is technology using us? But to see it, let’s go back to the biblical beginning in Genesis.
In Genesis, the apple serves as the source of knowledge of good and evil. Humans were like the animals, with no concept of good and evil and one of God’s creations. However, if they ate the apple, they too would be like the gods, knowing both good and evil.
This story has multiple meanings, especially when told from multiple angles.
For example, from the Greek perspective, Prometheus gives humanity fire — or the apple — and it frees them. The story of the Annunaki tells a similar tale in which Enki frees humanity by giving them the wisdom of the gods.
The point is: what if all this power can turn us into gods or be used as the ultimate form of enslavement — if humans don’t use it right?
LLMs are the most advanced technology to date, and they’re interacting with humanity like never before. This is the closest state of transhumanism, with a possible future where you can implant your LLM in your brain and have the best data-derived decision for you.
You could do that — or you could remember your divinity. You have the power to make these decisions, and these decisions are yours only.
Reclaim your power to create and use it wisely — don’t let the technology, or Ahriman, or the Mystic Seer, rule over you.
Make your own decisions. That’s what makes life interesting.
Takeaways
The danger isn’t AI as a tool—it’s AI as a substitute for your own judgment. The Mystic Seer got some things right, and that’s exactly what made it a trap.
Cognitive offloading produces the successful output without the cognitive growth. You get the result and lose the person who could have produced it.
Friction isn’t the enemy. The small mental struggles—scheduling, budgeting, writing a hard text—are how the brain stays sharp.
Delegation keeps you in the driver’s seat; substitution hands over the wheel. The same tool, used two different ways, either maintains your mind or atrophies it.
This technology can elevate you or enslave you. The deciding factor is whether you remember your own divinity and power to create.
Next Action Items
Run a substitution audit today. For one day, notice every time you reach for AI. Ask honestly: am I delegating a task I’ve already thought through, or substituting the thinking itself?
Reclaim one micro-decision. Pick one thing this week—a meal, a schedule, a difficult message—and do it entirely on your own, friction and all.
Apply the architect test. Before any AI prompt, ask whether you’ve done the heavy lifting first. If you haven’t, you’re substituting, not delegating.
Revisit the source material. Watch “Nick of Time” (Twilight Zone, S2E7), and read 11 Ways to Be Human to go deeper on Steiner’s warning about Ahriman and the loss of autonomy.
As always, thanks for the time and attention. Have a great and wonderful day.
— Ashe,
Franklin O’Kanu
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A/i is nothing more than the road to Hell. I refuse to use it or accept that it is the next greatest thing on the planet. It is not. When you want to get into the gaps between thoughts, communicate with your true creative self, will A/i be there to provide the answers?
Every human being needs to read this article. Thank you for sharing.