Episode 44

AI & Memory, Attention, Intuition, and the Habits of Thinking

15 June 2026 · 00:08:51

Season 3 RerunAI is making everyday thinking easier.It can draft the email, summarise the report, suggest the idea, organise the information and help us get started faster.That can be incredibly useful.But it also raises a more personal question:"When AI starts carrying more of the mental load, what happens to the habits of thinking we used to practise ourselves?"This episode revisits the idea of cognitive offloading: the way humans use tools to reduce mental effort. We have always done this. The printing press changed memory. Calculators changed arithmetic. Search engines changed how we find information.AI is different because it does not just help us store or calculate.It helps us think.In this episode:Why cognitive offloading is not automatically a bad thingHow AI changes memory, attention, intuition and judgementWhy the first stage of thinking still mattersWhat writers, designers, strategists and professionals risk losing if they stop practising the early stepsHow to use AI without weakening your own cognitive fitnessAs Decoded: AI for Everyone moves toward Season 4 and Applied Intelligence, this episode is worth revisiting because the question is no longer whether we should use AI.The better question is:Which parts of thinking do we still want to keep sharp?Resources and tools: Show resource: Decoded-podcast.comPractical AI prompting techniques and guides: PromptEngineeringCookbook.comStrategic research and insights on AI and digital transformation: Strategen-ai.comLearn more about the podcast and Joel Leslie: https://joelleslie.com.auExecutive podcast: DecisionLayer-Podcast.com

← All episodes