Lessons from the Calculator Generation

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Amsterdam, Nov. 3d. 2025–There is a story we like to tell ourselves about technology:

“New tools free us to think more deeply.”

The calculator was supposed to free children from arithmetic so they could focus on higher mathematics.

But that is not what happened.

Across the world today:

• Students reach for a calculator to add 2 + 2.
• Cashiers cannot give change without a digital register.
• Young adults freeze when faced with numbers on paper.

Not because they are unintelligent.
But because the foundation was never formed.

We allowed the tool to replace the skill, instead of supporting it.

This is the same moment we are facing now with AI.

If we let AI answer before we learn to question, then the capacity to question erodes.

If we let AI decide before we learn to think, then the capacity to think weakens.

And once weakened, it is easy to guide.

Calculators replaced arithmetic.

AI can replace judgment.

And judgment — unlike arithmetic — is the root of:

• autonomy
• decision-making
• moral agency
• identity

The danger is not that AI makes mistakes.

The danger is that it can make mistakes in ways we do not notice.

If a calculator gives you the wrong answer, you can check it.
But if AI gives you the wrong framing, the wrong assumption, the wrong emotional context…

There is no simple way to detect the distortion.

Which is why the defense must not be technical.

The defense must be human.

We must restore three cultural pillars:

1. Intellectual Self-Reliance

Teach children how to think before teaching them how to use AI.

2. Manual Capability

Let people solve, reason, write, analyze — without digital assistance — regularly.

3. Awareness of Influence

We must normalize the idea that information can be shaped.

Not to generate paranoia.
But to cultivate attention.

A society that forgets how to think cannot recognize when it is being guided.

And a society that cannot recognize guidance is no longer steering.

The threat of AI poisoning is real.

But the deeper threat is that we might forget how to live without the machine.

If we lose that, then it no longer matters who controls AI.

Because AI will control us — simply by being easier.

The future is not determined by the existence of powerful tools.
It is determined by whether the human being remains present in his own thinking.

The challenge is not technological.

The challenge is cultural, educational, civilizational.

If we choose convenience over capacity, then we will not need to be manipulated.

We will have simply handed over the steering wheel ourselves.

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