AI kills creativity. AI destroys human connection. Technology removes the human touch. Are we sure? Sure that tablets, AI, or any technology is the problem, or is it, as always, how we use it that makes the difference?
I’m starting with this provocation not to attack or stir debate, but to talk about two things I genuinely care about: human relationships and thinking. I’m writing this on the afternoon of March 5th, after a day split between teaching at ITS and working in the office. And it was precisely that class that gave me the spark for today’s post.
Superficiality is an old problem, it doesn’t affect everyone, but it’s there, and probably stronger in recent decades. You see it in linear thinking, in the tendency to generalize, in blaming tools instead of looking at how we use them. Technology, games, social media, AI: perfect scapegoats for those who don’t want to look deeper. And yet those who have understood the value of thinking, from Montessori to Nordic school systems, to the founding idea behind the European Union, built on principles rather than pure economic interest, know that tools are neutral. We give them direction.
The Playground as an Experiment
Tuesday, March 4th. I leave the office, pick up Amelia from nursery, Marco from primary school, and we head to the playground. I couldn’t really afford to, I had work to finish, but I couldn’t bring myself to keep them away from the swings, the fresh air, their friends. So we went.
And yet that same technology everyone fears turned out to be my lifeline. With my iPhone I had a computer in my pocket, I set up emails, documents, tasks. With Claude Code I kicked off some development work. GitHub Actions ran the automated tests. Was I glued to the screen? No, I was chatting with the other parents, playing with Marco and Amelia, and as always we walked home with Amelia on my shoulders for the last stretch.
The AI was working with me. I was building everything else.
Thinking Is the Real Tool
That afternoon at the playground wouldn’t have been possible without reticular thinking, without the philosophy and philosophical mathematics I carry inside me. It wouldn’t have been possible without metacognition, that ability to observe yourself and act on multiple levels at once. The nodes and edges of my mental graph multiply through these tools. I’ve never felt more alive, holding something that feels almost like a superpower. But it doesn’t come from the hardware. It comes from thinking, and from how thinking allows me to connect.
To talk with another parent, listen to them, build something real. To take Marco to karate and hear a father say: “We haven’t known each other long, but I feel comfortable talking to you and asking your opinion.” That one sentence is worth more than any metric.
In the Classroom, Almost by Accident
Today during the lesson, one student, a talented illustrator, was deeply skeptical about AI. The heated discussion that followed was wonderful. Everyone grew, everyone co-created something together. Reflecting on it now, I realize I was using, almost naturally, the maieutics of Socrates, the dialogics of Plato, the pragmatism of Dewey, and the language games of Wittgenstein. Not as a framework I was consciously applying, but simply as a way of being in the conversation.
Thinking is extraordinary. A rhizome can ignite. You need cognitive bandwidth. The tools are there.