Distributed Atrophy 2.0: Cognitive Offloading and the Reshaping of Thought
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AI tools no longer just assist our thinking—they shape it. This paper introduces the concept of distributed atrophy: the gradual weakening of internal cognitive abilities through habitual reliance on intelligent systems. Drawing from distributed cognition, embodied intelligence, and cognitive offloading theory, we argue that modern AI doesn’t just support mental work—it rewires it. As users adapt to streamlined information flows and instant synthesis, key capacities like abstraction, synthesis, and metacognitive pause may erode. We propose a model of offloading schemas—internalized patterns for delegating thought to machines—and explore how these emerging blueprints may shift how we learn, create, and define intelligence itself.
