The Quiet Surrender: How Ambient AI Is Rewriting Adult Cognition

Short summary

An essay examining 'gradual cognitive externalisation' — the incremental migration of memory, navigation, and reasoning tasks from human minds to ambient AI systems. It grounds the concept in Eleanor Maguire's London cab driver neuroplasticity studies, which showed hippocampal enlargement from navigational demand, implying the reverse: cognitive neglect may structurally thin the brain. The central question is whether cumulative AI offloading has already reduced human capability without our noticing.

• •arXiv framework names the drift 'gradual cognitive externalisation' — small convenient substitutions adding up
• •London cab driver studies show brain structure follows use, implying neglect causes thinning
• •Core question: at what point does cognitive offloading become structural capability reduction?

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