When I was growing up, teachers would assign research papers that required going to the library, or later, searching for relevant material on the internet. If the paper was going to turn out well, we students needed to patiently comb through piles of material, weaving what we found into a coherent argument that was well-supported with evidence.
Unbeknownst to us at the time, our teachers were giving us a chance to develop our patience.
That chance is rapidly disappearing with increased use of artificial intelligence tools. Now you can have an AI do everything from school assignments to legal writing, sermon preparation, vacation planning, work emails and academic research. Researchers are already documenting how using AI tools in these contexts likely erodes critical thinking skills.
But what hasn’t been appreciated is AI’s effect on patience. As a philosopher who has written extensively about virtue, including the virtue of patience, I am especially concerned about what people can do to resist this trend.
How do you react to waiting in a long, boring line?
