There’s a big problem with digital note-taking that nobody is talking about.
Finding a note-taking app that doesn’t have AI built in as a core feature is becoming increasingly more difficult.
In fact, I was only able to find a handful of popular note-taking apps that do not yet have AI and even most of those have capabilities of installing ChatGPT plugins.
You may ask, why would this be a problem? Don’t AI tools enable us to be more productive? The sweeping trend of AI integration with everything including our digital thinking tools is causing us to do less thinking.
If Dr. Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park were a real person today, he might have said something like:
“Your developers were so preoccupied with whether they could integrate AI, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Even before we begin the note-making process, we are faced with countless AI tools to automate research, synthesis and simplify complex knowledge for us. We then pat ourselves on the back, thinking we are being more productive by saving the time and energy of critical thinking.
It is a misnomer to call AI artificial intelligence since cognition cannot be outsourced to machines. Instead, think of AI as Automated Information. Now imagine bringing an information automation machine into your note-taking system while trying to avoid the collector’s fallacy!
But I am not making a case for becoming a Luddite. AI can be useful in the note-making but its tradeoffs and limitations should be taken into careful consideration.
I only use Perplexity in my workflow as a glorified search engine to find source material and not to summarize or simplify complex knowledge – and I am still not totally convinced that the efficiency tradeoff is worth the cost of organic discovery.
The American philosopher Daniel Dennett once said,
“The real danger, I think, is not that machines more intelligent than we are will usurp our role as captains of our destinies, but that we will over-estimate the comprehension of our latest thinking tools, prematurely ceding authority to them far beyond their competence.”
We should heed this warning and be cautious of overusing AI to avoid critical thinking.
As AI integrations become more widely used for digital knowledge work, the skill of critical thinking and synthesis will become more rare.
Put in the hard work to develop the rare and valuable skill of synthesizing.
Invest in critical thought as an increasingly valuable asset.
As always, stay curious my friend.
-Tony