Q&A: The "collision" between AI, your brain, and society

Original title: Q&A: The “collision” between AI, your brain, and society

In a new book, Professor Eric So explores how the technology affects our thinking skills.

By DizikesOct 15, 2026

Score█████░░░░░4.8

VerdictCompetent work. Briefs at most.

Summary from the source

In a new book, Professor Eric So explores how the technology affects our thinking skills.

Peter Dizikes

Heuristic review

Dimension	Level	Weight	What that level means
Leverage	██░░░ 2	15%	Reusable within one subfield (a technique, dataset, or protocol a few groups will adopt).
Magnitude	██░░░ 2	20%	Solid incremental gain on a meaningful problem.
Evidence	██░░░ 2	20%	Limited: single setting, weak baselines, or an observational association presented as causal.
Novelty	██░░░ 2	10%	A new combination of known ideas.
Trajectory	██░░░ 2	10%	Some room to improve with obvious engineering.
Stakes	██░░░ 2	25%	Benefits a professional community (practitioners, clinicians, engineers).

Editor’s rationale

Heuristic triage from title and abstract text only, not a reading of the paper. No strong cues found.

rank-2026-10-07

Score█████░░░░░4.8

Score = 10 × (50% × adjusted merit / 10 + 25% × attention + 25% × freshness)

Merit: 3.4 / 10; Weighted rubric, evidence-gated.
Adjusted merit: 3.8 / 10; Shrunk toward the desk prior by editor confidence (30%).
Attention: 24%; Citations, upvotes, points, mentions.
Freshness: 92%; Half-life decay since publication.

No attention signals recorded yet.

Reviewed by heuristic-v6 on Oct 15, 2026, 06:06 UTC. Paper type: news.
Categories: Books and authors, Research, Faculty, Interview, Artificial intelligence, Technology and society, MIT Sloan School of Management
BRIEF, No.2 in the Front page edition of October 15, 2026.
TOP, No.1 in the News edition of October 15, 2026.