“When intelligence is plentiful, volition is valuable. The people who are going to make a difference are not the ones who seek relaxation and passively use AI to work less. They are the ones who will seek improvement and actively wrestle with AI to develop their own mental capabilities and accomplish more.” – David Brooks – The Atlantic
The spread of powerful language models has created a strange scarcity pattern: analytical horsepower is cheap, but directed human effort is not. Systems that once demanded years of training can now be approximated by prompts; what used to separate high performers was rare knowledge, whereas now the dividing line is how people choose to engage with tools that can think alongside them.1 The tension is no longer between the informed and the ignorant, but between those who treat artificial intelligence as a sofa and those who treat it as a sparring partner.1,30
The shift from intelligence as advantage to intelligence as infrastructure
Historically, being able to recall facts, synthesise sources quickly, or draft cogent text at speed provided a reliable career advantage. Generative AI erodes that edge by automating many mid-level cognitive tasks: summarising documents, proposing outlines, drafting emails, generating code, or producing passable first drafts.1,3 Intelligence in this narrow, instrumental sense behaves more like infrastructure than personal capital; it is abundant, widely accessible, and embedded in dozens of everyday tools.3,18 When everyone can summon a competent explainer, translator, or analyst in seconds, the differentiator shifts from what you know to what you are prepared to do with what can now be known almost on demand.1,22
This reclassification has profound labour-market implications. Occupations once insulated by information asymmetry – consultants, lawyers, analysts, even educators – are being reconfigured as clients and students gain cheap access to quasi-expert reasoning.18,24 The human advantage migrates away from grinding through information to deciding which questions to ask, which paths to pursue, and which trade-offs to accept. In other words, volition – the disposition to initiate, persist, and take responsibility – becomes a primary economic and cultural asset.1
Volition as a scarce capability in an age of cognitive outsourcing
Volition is more than generic motivation; it is a structured willingness to confront difficulty rather than route around it. Modern AI systems make avoidance deceptively easy. It is trivial to hand off the awkward email, the intimidating blank page, or the complex planning problem and accept the first adequate output. Evidence from education and mental health suggests that such passive use can dull both critical thinking and self-regulation, especially when users begin to anthropomorphise systems and treat their outputs as authoritative rather than provisional.2,11 Studies of technology and AI dependence describe patterns of reduced effort, weakened memory formation, and erosion of decision-making confidence when people consistently offload cognitive labour without reflective engagement.11,30
By contrast, using AI as a scaffold rather than a crutch can strengthen volitional muscles. Guidance from psychologists and educators stresses practices such as asking for hints instead of full solutions, writing one’s own analysis before consulting a model, and using AI to critique or stress-test personally generated ideas.1,18 These strategies preserve the locus of control in the human user while still exploiting the model’s breadth of knowledge. Volition shows up in choices like starting with a blank page, posing increasingly precise follow-up questions, iterating through counter-arguments, and deliberately tackling concepts that initially feel uncomfortable.1,18
The character of those who thrive: wrestlers, not delegators
The statement splits future workers and citizens into two archetypes: those who seek relaxation through automation, and those who seek improvement through friction. The first group uses AI chiefly to shrink effort and time-on-task. They ask for complete essays, ready-made slide decks, or turnkey marketing campaigns, and treat the outputs as finished products rather than raw material. Educators already report that such uses correlate with diminished engagement and superficial learning, even when grades in the short term may not immediately suffer.18,24 Over time, their own mental models atrophy because they seldom practise original structuring, framing, or evaluation of information.30
The second group treats AI as an adversarial collaborator. They use it to surface objections to their arguments, uncover edge cases they might have missed, or rehearse difficult conversations in low-stakes simulations.1,6 They turn generative tools into tutors by asking them to probe their understanding, devise exercises, and generate alternative perspectives that must then be weighed rather than swallowed.3,18 In work settings, these individuals are more likely to deploy AI to expand project scope, run scenario analyses that would otherwise be unaffordable, or build prototypes that test new ideas. Their aim is not to do the same workload faster but to increase the ambition and complexity of what they attempt.1,27
Brooks’s broader humanistic frame
David Brooks has long been preoccupied with the question of what remains distinctly human when technological systems encroach on cognitive territory once reserved for people. In public writing and talks, he has argued that artificial intelligence clarifies human value by making machine-susceptible skills cheap and spotlighting those forms of understanding that resist codification: empathy, moral judgment, narrative meaning-making, and situational awareness.1,7,10 He contends that success will increasingly depend on cultivating a recognisable personal voice, the ability to move others, and the courage to hold unusual perspectives rather than merely conforming to standardised, optimised outputs.7
In that frame, volition is not only about economic productivity but about moral agency. The danger is not simply that people become less employable if they relax into AI; it is that they become less fully themselves, outsourcing not just drafts and diagrams but values, priorities, and identity-defining decisions.11,14 Brooks’s warning therefore aligns with a growing chorus of psychologists and ethicists who worry that heavy AI reliance may blunt autonomy and leave individuals more susceptible to manipulation, persuasive design, and algorithmically curated realities.2,8,11
Debates and objections: is striving always superior?
There are, however, important objections to a pure celebration of volition. One challenge comes from mental health research showing that constant striving, especially in precarious labour markets, can feed burnout, anxiety, and a sense of perpetual inadequacy.8,11 For individuals juggling care responsibilities, disability, or economic stress, using AI simply to ease burdens is not decadence but survival. In these contexts, seeking relaxation is a rational response to chronic overload, and the ethical focus should fall on how systems can reduce drudgery without undermining dignity or agency.5,23
Another critique questions whether the dichotomy between passive and active users is too binary. Many people will mix modes, sometimes leaning on AI to manage routine tasks and at other times engaging deeply for skill-building. Research on self-paced learning suggests that well-designed AI tools can boost engagement precisely by automating low-level chores, freeing time for higher-order thinking.18,24 From this angle, what matters is not whether one ever uses AI to work less, but whether one consistently chooses to grow in areas that machines cannot fully absorb. The key risk is not convenience itself, but unexamined convenience that gradually hollows out competence and initiative.30
Practical volition: how to wrestle productively with AI
Turning the abstract ideal of volition into practice requires deliberate habits. One approach is to treat AI outputs as hypotheses to interrogate rather than answers to trust. In education, teachers are advised to ask students to critique AI-generated essays, identify weaknesses, and improve them, thereby turning the tool into a stimulus for human judgment.18 Knowledge workers can do something similar by generating multiple AI proposals and then justifying their final choice in writing, making their own reasoning explicit rather than implicit. This pattern keeps the human in the role of editor, strategist, and accountable decision-maker.
Another practice is to use AI to expand the frontier of personal development. Examples include AI-assisted coaching platforms that pose reflective questions, track progress, and suggest challenges calibrated to the user’s goals.3,15 Some professionals use models to simulate supervision conversations, invite critiques of their work, and discover blind spots in their reasoning.12,27 In all these cases, the tool becomes an instrument for building self-awareness, resilience, and creativity – the very capacities commentators argue are most resistant to automation.7,14 Volition here shows up as the willingness to be tested, corrected, and stretched rather than merely served.
Why it matters: from personal success to cultural trajectory
The deeper significance of the statement lies in how it frames the social trajectory of the AI age. If large numbers of people opt for the path of least resistance, delegating thought wherever possible, we risk a culture of shallow comprehension and brittle institutions dependent on opaque systems they do not really understand.11,19 Democracies become vulnerable when citizens lack both the skills and the will to interrogate automated decision-making, from credit scoring to predictive policing. Conversely, if enough individuals cultivate volition – the appetite to question, to learn, to assume responsibility – AI can function as a lever that raises collective capability instead of a cushion that lulls it.1,2
For organisations, the message is equally stark. Competitive advantage will not come from owning models that competitors can rent, but from assembling teams with the determination and curiosity to combine those models in novel ways, pursue bolder projects, and sustain learning loops over time. Hiring for volition – self-starting behaviour, tolerance for difficulty, and ethical seriousness – may prove more predictive of long-run value than hiring for narrow technical proficiency that AI can increasingly replicate.20,26 Strategically, the central question shifts from how much work can be automated to how much human ambition can be safely and wisely amplified.
References
1. The People Who Will Thrive in the AI Age – The Atlantic – 2026-06-28 – https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/06/ai-open-ai-anthropic/687689/
2. Health advisory: Artificial intelligence and adolescent well-being – 2025-06-03 – https://www.apa.org/topics/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning/health-advisory-ai-adolescent-well-being
3. AI-Enabled Personal Development – Immerse Education – 2024-12-22 – https://www.immerse.education/personal-development/productivity-and-adaptability/ai-enabled-personal-development/
4. David Brooks on Audacity, AI, and the American Psyche – 2025-08-20 – https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/david-brooks-2/
5. How to improve mental health in the older adults through AI … – Nature – 2025-06-18 – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-025-05155-6
6. How to Build a Growth Mindset with AI! – YouTube – 2025-10-21 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW2JoitzNV0&vl=en
7. Brooks on A.I. and Being Human | Covenant College – 2023-02-24 – https://covenant.edu/blog/life-career/brooks-on-ai-and-being-human.html
8. Artificial intelligence in positive mental health: a narrative review – 2024-03-18 – https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10982476/
9. Tips on utilising AI to master personal development and efficiency – 2024-09-08 – https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtificialInteligence/comments/1fc4u5y/tips_on_utilising_ai_to_master_personal/
10. David Brooks argues that, in the age of AI, success will … – Facebook – 2026-06-30 – https://www.facebook.com/TheAtlantic/posts/david-brooks-argues-that-in-the-age-of-ai-success-will-be-determined-not-by-how-/1400908338575239/
11. Minds in Crisis: How the AI Revolution is Impacting Mental Health – 2025-09-05 – https://www.mentalhealthjournal.org/articles/minds-in-crisis-how-the-ai-revolution-is-impacting-mental-health.html
12. How AI is Powering My Personal Development (for now) – Better U – 2025-04-02 – https://blogs.flinders.edu.au/student-health-and-well-being/2025/04/02/how-ai-is-powering-my-personal-development-for-now/
13. Thriving in the Age of AI with David Brooks – LinkedIn – 2026-07-01 – https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bobhutchins_david-brooks-has-done-a-brilliant-piece-in-activity-7478082363613204480-mOx2
14. Surviving and Thriving in the Age of Artificial Intelligence – 2025-09-06 – https://www.doctorkolzet.com/blog/surviving-thriving-age-of-ai
15. Personal Development with AI Coaching – Rocky.ai – https://www.rocky.ai/personal-development
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17. A Gifted Youth Perspective: Human Intelligence during the Age of AI – 2025-09-20 – https://www.mensafoundation.org/the-epistemic-value-of-human-cognition-in-artificial-intelligence/
18. Using AI to Fuel Engagement and Active Learning – ASCD – 2024-07-01 – https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/using-ai-to-fuel-engagement-and-active-learning
19. Critique of ‘Many People Fear A.I. They Shouldn’t’ by David Brooks. – 2024-08-15 – https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kWWvkwvhZh9bHcf2q/critique-of-many-people-fear-a-i-they-shouldn-t-by-david
20. Skills You’ll Need to Succeed in the Post-AI Age. – YouTube – 2026-04-08 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT6vR4QpQYw
21. How AI is changing student motivation and engagement | SchoolAI – 2025-10-09 – https://schoolai.com/blog/ai-changing-student-motivation-engagement-classrooms
22. AI Age: Volition Trumps Relaxation | Joel Schettler posted on the topic – 2026-06-29 – https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joelschettler_the-people-who-will-thrive-in-the-ai-age-activity-7477563518326833154-sSTU
23. Harnessing artificial intelligence for mental well-being of aging … – https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1876201825002989
24. The AI Advantage: Boosting Student Engagement in Self-paced … – 2023-09-18 – https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-with-technology-articles/the-ai-advantage-boosting-student-engagement-in-self-paced-learning-through-ai/
25. The People Who Will Thrive in the AI Age – Political Wire – 2026-06-28 – https://politicalwire.com/2026/06/28/the-people-who-will-thrive-in-the-ai-age/
26. The secret to success in the AI Age: broadening yourself | Jeffrey … – 2025-08-19 – https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jeffcooper_the-secret-to-success-in-the-ai-age-broadening-activity-7363744750266400769-M99D
27. Using AI to Get an Edge in Personal Development – ASU+GSV Summit – 2022-02-25 – https://asugsvsummit.com/video/using-ai-to-get-an-edge-in-personal-development
28. Will Humans Still Be Humans in an Age of Artificial Intelligence? – 2013-07-11 – https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/277732/will-humans-still-be-humans-in-an-age-of-artificial-intelligence/
29. In the age of AI, what will determine someone’s personal success … – 2026-06-29 – https://www.facebook.com/TheAtlantic/posts/in-the-age-of-ai-what-will-determine-someones-personal-success-david-brooks-argu/1399784212020985/
30. Harnessing generative AI: Exploring its impact on cognitive … – https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0023969025000438
