OFENTSE RAPAKGADI | AI and the outsourcing of thought

Artificial intelligence has moved from being an emerging technology to becoming an everyday workplace reality. Across industries, organisations are integrating AI into their operations to improve productivity, accelerate decision-making and remain competitive.

Governments are developing policy frameworks to guide its responsible use, while universities continue to debate its implications for teaching and assessment. The conversation has been both necessary and overdue.

Most of this conversation, however, has focused on the technology itself. We ask whether AI will replace jobs, increase productivity or reshape entire industries.

These are important questions, but they are not the only ones worth asking. There is another question that, in my view, deserves greater attention: what happens when the widespread adoption of AI begins to change not only how we work, but how we develop the human capabilities that work has traditionally required?

This question feels particularly relevant in South Africa. We continue to face significant challenges in education, youth unemployment and skills development, while employers consistently identify analytical thinking, creativity and problem-solving as some of the capabilities most needed in the modern workplace.

At the same time, Microsoft’s 2024 Work Trend Index found that approximately three-quarters of knowledge workers are already using generative AI in their work. AI is no longer a technology we are preparing for. It is already shaping how people write, analyse information, solve problems and make decisions.

The question, therefore, is no longer whether professionals should use AI. That debate has largely been settled. The more important question is whether we are being sufficiently intentional about the capabilities we continue to develop ourselves.

I ask this question as someone who uses AI every day. As an entrepreneur and marketing executive, I depend on it to accelerate research, interrogate ideas, improve efficiency and eliminate repetitive work.

The productivity gains are real. My concern is not that AI is making people less intelligent. Rather, it is that we may gradually begin to outsource aspects of thinking that have traditionally been central to developing our expertise. That concern did not emerge from theory. It emerged from practice.

Recently, while preparing an important piece of writing, I instinctively opened ChatGPT before opening a blank document. Within minutes, I had a well-structured draft that significantly reduced the time I would ordinarily have spent writing. I published the piece and moved on with the rest of my workday. What stayed with me afterwards was not the quality of the technology, but my own reaction to it. I realised that I no longer felt I had permission to give an idea the depth of thought it required.

My concern is not that work is being completed quickly. It is that speed may gradually become more valuable than depth, even when the quality of the outcome depends on sustained thought.

For many professionals, efficiency has become synonymous with excellence.