University of Kwazulu-Natal

How Ai Is Quietly Rewriting The Rules We Thought Were Set In Medium

Bonisiwe Shabane
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how ai is quietly rewriting the rules we thought were set in medium

Artificial Intelligence has been called a thousand things in the last decade: disruptive, dangerous, overhyped, misunderstood, revolutionary, and inevitable. Depending on who you ask, AI is either humanity’s golden ticket to solving the world’s most complex problems—or the last invention we’ll ever need to make. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: most of the conversations about AI miss the point. AI isn’t just a technology. It’s not a chatbot you can prod with a prompt. It’s not a recommendation engine telling you what shoes to buy next.

It’s not even the looming threat of automation hanging over industries. AI, at its core, is synthetic intuition. That phrase—synthetic intuition—might sound dramatic, but it captures what’s really happening. For the first time in history, we’ve built something that doesn’t just compute, but anticipates. It doesn’t just store data—it synthesizes. It doesn’t just spit out results—it mirrors our most human trait: the ability to leap from pattern to possibility.

When people talk about AI in media, the conversation usually revolves around deepfakes, automated content, or ChatGPT taking jobs. But what if I told you that the most important AI-driven shift in media isn’t happening on the surface—it’s happening behind the scenes, reshaping influence, credibility, and control in ways few people are paying... Subscribe to AI & Communications Lab to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives. The very essence of writing is undergoing a revolution. Over the past two years, Artificial intelligence has begun to reshape how we compose everything from casual emails to complex reports. This technological transformation goes beyond mere mechanics; it influences our thinking in a subtle but far-reaching way.

Are we witnessing an evolution in human cognition or an erosion? At first glance, the benefits are undeniable. AI writing tools, such as ChatGTP, Claude, or Gemini offer unparalleled efficiency, generating text in seconds, summarizing lengthy documents, translating languages and crafting entire reports from scratch – increasingly with impressive accuracy. This newfound ease in the production and delivery of polished materials promises to liberate us from the drudgery of drafting, allowing us to focus on higher-level conceptualization and strategic thinking. However, this has consequences beyond the output stage. One of the most intriguing shifts is the increasing emphasis on the art of questioning.

As AI-powered chatbots become more sophisticated, their ability to provide answers hinges entirely on the clarity and precision of our queries. Vague or poorly formulated questions yield superficial or nonsensical results, forcing us to adopt a more rigorous approach to intellectual exploration. Potentially, this dynamic will lead us to cultivate greater internal clarity. In the pre-AI era, we often muddled through complex topics, relying on intuition and tacit understanding. Now, the need to articulate our thoughts with precision compels us to deconstruct complex ideas, identify underlying assumptions, and formulate straightforward, concise questions. In essence, AI is training us to think more like AI.

We learn to think more about the question we seek to address before writing the related answers. This is positive. Another consequence of our new approach to text production is less promising.

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