The use of artificial intelligence tools is changing the way we approach tasks, eliminating the need for patience and potentially leading to decreased critical thinking skills. 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. Philosophers and theologians have long considered patience an important character trait to cultivate, contributing to well-being and linked to a variety of good outcomes, including healthier lifestyles, greater emotion regulation, more fulfilling relationships, increased caring about equity and justice, increased cooperation, greater purpose in life, lower depression and higher life satisfaction. Patience involves responding calmly when it is taking longer than you want to accomplish your goals. When I am stuck in a traffic jam, or the checkout line is barely moving, I might wish that I was meeting my goals faster, but my calm demeanor is a sign that I am being patient. The use of AI tools is helping foster a culture of immediacy, thereby diminishing the capacity for patience. Admittedly, we already started down this path with the dawn of the internet and the launch of fast and easy search engines. But now, AI instantaneously delivers fully developed answers, further reducing the delays once experienced as people searched, assessed and integrated information from various sources.
Philosophers, theologians and educators have long considered patience an important character trait to cultivate. It is a virtue that contributes to well-being. More specifically, researchers have linked it to a variety of good outcomes, including healthier lifestyles, greater emotion regulation, more fulfilling relationships, increased caring about equity and justice, increased cooperation, greater purpose in life, lower depression and higher life satisfaction.
Researchers are documenting how using AI tools in contexts such as school assignments, legal writing, sermon preparation, vacation planning, work emails and academic research likely erodes critical thinking skills. 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.
One concrete illustration of this change is with students. If a professor gives an assignment involving interpreting an author's text and then developing a critique of the author's position, students today are very tempted to offload the patient work of interpretation and critique to an AI. Or consider sermon preparation. Pastors normally take hours a week to examine the original language for their text, consult commentaries, develop illustrations and examples, and deliberate about practical applications. Now, this process can all be done in a matter of seconds using AI.
There are ways to cultivate patience in the age of AI tools, but they will not be easy. Deliberately choosing a slower path requires selecting an option that comes with intellectual struggles, not in spite of them. Don't rely on AI summaries or shortcuts, but try to come up with the answers on your own.
Patience is about responding calmly to situations that are beyond our control. It's about being willing to put in the time and effort required to achieve our goals. With the increasing use of AI tools, it's more important than ever to find ways to cultivate patience in our lives.