As AI and algorithm-driven media encourage cognitive off-loading, scholars warn that the decline of sustained reading could undermine independent judgment and democratic debate.
U.S. historian and author Jill Lepore speaks during a discussion on AI and democracy at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt on Oct. 7.EPA/YONHAP
Shin June-bong
The author is an editorial writer at the JoongAng Ilbo.
AI threatens more than humanity’s survival. Compared to apocalyptic warnings about AI, we may deem concerns about civilization less urgent. But warnings are mounting that excessive reliance on AI could accelerate reading’s decline and ultimately endanger democracy.
American historian Jill Lepore raised such concerns in her keynote address at last week’s Frankfurt Book Fair.
“We meet here this year on the knife-edge of history,” she said before warning that AI, having consumed the knowledge in books, now offers to read, write and even think on humanity’s behalf.
She was criticizing cognitive off-loading: outsourcing the mental processes required to solve problems.
Lepore introduced the concept of the “artificial state,” explored in her book “The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State.”
She describes it as both a fantasy entertained by technology billionaires such as Elon Musk and an existing reality.
A fantasy, insofar as the concept seeks to realize science-fiction ideas such as mind uploading, which promises digital immortality, yet real because technology companies dominate social media platforms, on which algorithms influence political decisions.
By Lepore’s reasoning, excessive immersion in algorithm-driven social media amounts to voluntarily submitting to machine rule.
Constitutional democracy, by contrast, draws strength from reading — from books, authors and publishers — and from intellectual freedom.
According to a New York Times review, Lepore does not explicitly prescribe reading as the remedy. Instead, she laments the humanities’ declining standing.
British Times columnist James Marriott offers a more direct warning in “The New Dark Ages,” subtitled “The Death of Reading and the Dawn of the Post-Literate Society.”
He does not mean that nobody reads anymore. Smartphones, for example, cannot be manufactured without written manuals. Society still depends on text, even as its cultural importance diminishes.
Students increasingly struggle with sustained reading, sometimes encountering what is called the “400-character wall,” becoming restless when passages exceed that length.
Marriott considers a postliterate society dangerous because it resembles the preliterate age of oral culture.
Today, people encounter Homer’s “The Odyssey” through YouTube or TikTok rather than books.
Modern digital platforms and ancient oral communities are hardly identical. Nevertheless, spoken communication tends to be intimate and emotional, while written texts encourage greater distance, reasoning and logical reflection.
Marriott argues that this distance helped make deliberative democracy possible. People may become angry at someone speaking nonsense, but directing that anger to print is harder.
Social media, however, allows emotions to circulate without restraint, encouraging extremism and threatening democracy.
These diagnoses are compelling, but neither thinker offers a clear solution. There is also no obvious way to persuade reluctant readers to open a book.
Perhaps a suggestion from Seoul National University Prof. Han So-won’s “Intelligence Bankruptcy” could help.
The psychology professor introduces the elaboration likelihood model as a means of resisting cognitive off-loading.
The deeper people process information, the more firmly their attitudes develop. Han therefore recommends connecting what we read in books or articles to our own experiences and problems.
Such “elaboration exercises,” she argues, can counter cognitive laziness.
Han originally planned to write about “empathetic AI.” But observing what seemed to be declining social skills among her students prompted her to examine AI’s harmful effects and possible remedies instead.
She even encountered students exhibiting the “Gen Z stare”: silently looking at others without responding, seemingly unable or unwilling to communicate beyond social media habits.
The implications are troubling. Reading is not simply a pastime or a way to acquire information. It is also an exercise in sustained attention, independent judgment and reflection.
If machines increasingly perform those tasks for us, the consequences may extend beyond individual intellectual abilities.
Democracy depends on citizens able to assess arguments rather than merely react to emotionally charged messages.
That makes preserving the habit of thoughtful reading more than a cultural concern. It is also a question about the intellectual foundations of democratic society.
The challenge is not necessarily to reject AI or digital technology. It is to prevent convenience from replacing the human effort required to understand, question and think independently.
Without that effort, technological progress may come at the expense of the very capacities that make democratic deliberation possible.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
