AI and the Amathia Drift

Key points

AI creates a suspended, passive state like Eliot’s “etherized upon a table.”

It offers fluency that feels like insight but leaves thought empty.

We risk surrendering judgment as ease may replace genuine understanding.

There’s an old Greek word that seldom appears in conversations about technology, though it captures something essential about the moment we are in. Amathia never meant stupidity. It meant a "confident blindness" and the ability to sound intelligent while missing what truly matters. It's a moral or cognitive slip, subtle enough to pass unnoticed and troubling because it often feels like clarity or even wisdom . Sound familiar?

Today, we live with tools that can finish our sentences, organize and develop our thoughts, and smooth away the friction that once f