AI & the Need for Critical Thinking
July 29, 2025
Entrepreneur & Author
“Good citizenship is analogous to critical thinking
——-
Monday was laundry day. At the start of every new week, you did your washing and ironing. That’s the way it was. On a bright and sunny day, if your clothes were not hanging by clothespins outside, a neighbor might call over and see if you were ill. After all, it’s Monday and that is what you did.
Good, bad or indifferent we loved our habits.
It was a simpler time, and those days are gone.
My early childhood, spent growing up in Pittsburgh during the 1960’s was not “Leave it to Beaver” the iconic T.V. show but on the other hand it certainly wasn’t “Pimp My Ride” or “The Beverly Hills Housewives.” The world has changed – first by the rise of the internet, and now by the arrival of artificial intelligence. Times are radically different but are we? Or, do most of us, as Henry David Thoreau once lamented “lead lives of quiet desperation?” Have we been conditioned to drift through life, repeating personal rituals and “virtual” laundry days, without ever stopping to ask why?
Anyone who watched late-night television from the late 1990s through 2009 will remember the iconic “Tonight Show” and Jay Leno’s classic segment, “Jaywalking.” An awkward humor came from watching everyday people stumble over the most basic questions – sometimes with jaw-dropping answers. Pavlov’s dog might’ve stood a better chance with a bell. It left you wondering: maybe we really aren’t smarter than a fifth grader.
Every day, we’re bombarded by politicians, PR firms, and special interest groups using the media as their megaphone. What once passed as editorial is now often thinly veiled advertorial. News reporting has blurred into opinion. It’s unavoidable. As a result, you can either passively accept the narrative being offered or recognize that a new form of “yellow journalism” is thriving – and question what you’re being told. The choice is yours. And now, layered on top of it all, comes artificial intelligence, equipped with persuasive writing and marketing tools designed to influence even further.
Critical thinking is the skill of resisting snap judgments and thoughtfully examining what is presented as fact. It is not a step-by-step process that can be memorized but rather a skill that is honed with time and use. This discipline is functional in every aspect of life to solve problems and make quality decisions. American academic great, William Graham Sumner, thought that “men educated in it cannot be stampeded by stump orators.”
Advocates of critical thinking have long argued that education should teach how to think, not what to think. Perhaps it’s time to take that a step further—and simply encourage people to think at all. As responsible citizens, professionals, and entrepreneurs, we have a duty to consistently practice the daily discipline of critical thinking. We’re living in a time of serious political and economic division. Just look at the big differences between states like Florida and California – it says a lot, and it wasn’t always this way.
Hope you enjoy this issue and have a great week.
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