Why your brain needs plenty of “Aha!” moments
Key takeaways
- In the age of AI, instant answers to our questions are readily available.
- Last week, my editor, Chelsea, said something that stopped me in my tracks.
- She wondered what might happen if we start outsourcing an increasing amount of our idea generation to AI before wrestling with it ourselves.
Why this matters: new research or scientific developments with potential real-world impact.
In the age of AI, instant answers to our questions are readily available. But columnist Helen Thomson finds that continuing to encourage those delicious flashes of insight that come from your own thoughts may be beneficial both for your everyday life and your long-term brain health
Twitter / X icon Linkedin Reddit Email What does an Aha! moment do to your brain?
Last week, my editor, Chelsea, said something that stopped me in my tracks. She was worried about the ubiquity of AI, but not for the normal journalistic reasons: job losses, plagiarism, dull prose, etc. It was the possibility that by using AI, she might be sacrificing one of life’s most reliable small pleasures – the daily joy she gets from having an “Aha!” moment. “For me,” she says, “it’s almost a physical feeling, something spreading across my brain.”