We live in a culture hooked on shortcuts. From drive-thru dinners to instant streaming, faster always feels better. AI is the newest shortcut, and the most powerful one yet. It promises speed, efficiency, and productivity with fewer people. On the surface, that sounds like progress. But speed without substance often comes at a cost.
Companies are already using AI to justify layoffs. Why keep ten employees when three can get the work done with AI tools? On the other side, workers are leaning on AI to punch above their weight. A junior designer can look like a pro, or a beginner coder can spit out “competent” code with almost no understanding of how it works. On paper, everyone looks smarter.
The numbers seem to add up. Productivity increases, costs drop, output looks polished. But the picture is deceiving, because the surface hides how fragile the foundation has become.
The problem is obvious. When everything depends on AI, real knowledge starts eroding and disappearing. Why spend years learning fundamentals when a machine can hand you the answer instantly? Over time, people stop building skills and companies stop investing in training.
What you get is a workforce that looks strong until something breaks. When the tool fails, the skills are not there to step in. A shortcut has created the illusion of strength, not the reality of it.
Short-term, AI makes things faster and cheaper. Long-term, it creates hollow expertise and weak foundations. Real progress has always come from people learning, struggling, and experimenting. That process is not wasted time. It is what builds resilience and insight. If we replace it with shortcuts, we end up with people who can only follow prompts instead of thinking for themselves.
Take Boeing’s reliance on software automation in the 737 Max crisis. In order to cut costs and compete, the company leaned on a system that was supposed to make the plane easier to fly. Pilots were not fully trained on how it worked, and when the software malfunctioned, many were left without the knowledge to correct it. The result was two fatal crashes that shook the aviation industry. What looked like efficiency on paper turned into tragedy in practice.
Or look at the rise of automated phone systems in business. They were introduced as a way to cut costs and handle more calls, but the customer experience has often been frustrating. People tolerate it because they have no choice, but if companies surveyed their customers honestly, they would see the automation is harming their business. A machine cannot handle nuance or empathy. The shortcut saves money, but it erodes trust and damages loyalty.
Even in something as everyday as fast food, McDonald’s experiment with AI-driven drive-thrus shows the limits of shortcuts. The system could take orders quickly, but reports showed it often misheard or botched what customers wanted. The speed of the transaction was lost to inaccuracy and dissatisfaction. It proves the same point: a shortcut that looks good on paper can collapse in practice.
A shortcut can mimic results, but it cannot build depth. A designer who never wrestles with bad ideas does not learn taste. A programmer who never fights through errors does not gain true problem-solving skills. A writer who never edits does not discover their own voice.
These are the very things that give work originality, breed innovation and staying power. Strip them away, and what is left is short-term gain and long-term pain. What looks efficient becomes brittle, unable to grow or adapt.
Shortcuts build speed, but they never build strength. If we let AI do all the thinking, we will not have a competent workforce able to problem solve for themselves. We will have a house of cards, ready to collapse at the first strong wind.
The better path is not to reject the tool, but to use it without abandoning the discipline. Real strength comes from people who understand the foundations and then use AI tobuild further, not replace what was never learned. The strongest organizations will be those that combine the strengths of both man and machine. Empower, not deflower. Used in this way, AI can amplify creativity, accelerate problem-solving, and free people to focus on new vistas of thought that no algorithm can replicate.
Progress is not about speed alone. It is about resilience, creativity, and the wisdom that comes from the struggle. AI should be the tool that supports that growth, not the shortcut that undermines it.