- A new analysis marks the 70th anniversary of AI, arguing modern chatbots are powerful tools that can amplify human intellect.
- Policy analyst David Wojick calls AI systems "reading and reasoning systems" that can save workers hours by scanning documents in seconds.
- The analysis estimates Americans could gain five billion extra hours of thinking time annually if AI handles routine searching tasks.
- Public distrust remains high, with 63% of Americans believing AI is advancing too quickly and 40% predicting societal harm.
- Wojick frames AI as a cognitive amplifier, similar to air conditioning, that works hard for us but also draws real power.
Seventy years after the first artificial intelligence program whirred to life, a new wave of "reading and reasoning systems" is poised to transform how Americans work, think, and search, according to a new analysis marking the field's diamond anniversary.
In July 1956, Carnegie Mellon's Herb Simon and Allen Newell presented the "Logic Theorist" at the Dartmouth Summer Research Project, widely considered the birth of applied AI. This week, policy analyst David Wojick, a former colleague of both pioneers, reflects on seven decades of progress and argues that today's chatbots are not threats but powerful tools that could spark a "cognitive renaissance." Writing in a CFACT guest column, Wojick contends that these systems, which emulate reading and reasoning on a massive scale, are best understood not as artificial brains but as essential amplifiers for human intellect, much like air conditioning improves physical comfort.
From chess to chat: A brief history
Wojick's historical review highlights a steady march of milestones. In 1997, IBM's Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov. In 2011, IBM's Watson conquered champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter on Jeopardy!, showcasing rapid question answering. Then in 2022, ChatGPT arrived, and within just over a year adoption had surged; Pew Research now finds about half of U.S. adults use AI chatbots, up from a third in 2024.
"AI has made steady progress," Wojick writes, noting the field has moved from narrow theorem-proving to systems that can read vast amounts of text and reason about it. He prefers the term "reading and reasoning systems" (RRS) to "chatbots" or "large language models," which he argues fail to capture what the machines actually do.
The search for a cognitive edge
The real benefit, Wojick argues, lies in the "cognitive space" between a simple internet search and a complex professional task. A system can scan thousands of documents in seconds, providing answers that would take humans hours to find, freeing up time for the thinking that follows.
"Most jobs involve looking stuff up and many require a lot of this search work," Wojick writes. "AI often produces answers in seconds that would take humans many minutes or even hours to find." This is not a job killer, he argues, because "few people just read and reason for a living." By his estimate, if a hundred million Americans save just one hour a week thanks to AI searching, that adds up to roughly five billion additional hours of thinking time each year.
A cognitive renaissance, or one more thing to distrust?
The analysis lands amid deep public wariness. Pew's 2026 survey found 63% of Americans believe AI is advancing too quickly, and 40% predict it will harm society over the next 20 years. Perhaps more tellingly, majorities also say they have little confidence in either the government or AI companies to handle the technology responsibly — a skepticism of both Washington and Big Tech that Americans have earned the right to hold.
Wojick offers a counterpoint to the doom-and-gloom, suggesting the "combination of Americans getting better information with more time to think will lead to a cognitive renaissance." He notes even academia is being reshaped, with journal articles increasingly surfaced by AI but read less often as users rely on summaries instead.
He frames the tradeoff as a feature, not a flaw. "Reading and reasoning systems can greatly improve our cognition, just as air conditioning greatly improves our comfort, but both use a lot of electricity," Wojick concludes. "This is an essential feature not a flaw."
That may be true, but it's worth remembering the choice of how, and how much, to lean on these tools still belongs to the individual, not to the companies selling them or the regulators eyeing them. Seventy years after the Logic Theorist, the real test isn't whether AI can think for us. It's whether Americans stay sharp enough to know when it shouldn't.
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