[An Essay from My Heart]

Practicing the Art of Slowing Down in the Age of AI

These days, answers arrive before we have fully formed our questions.
Before we finish typing, AI has already completed the sentence for us.
It is fast, accurate, and convincing.
And so, little by little, we grow accustomed to a state
in which thinking is no longer required.

Yet the more effortless thinking becomes,
the easier it is for our reasoning to grow shallow.
Speed replaces judgment,
and confident-sounding sentences push doubt aside.
At moments like this, what we need is not more information,
but the ability to pause.

Choi Rip’s concept of jeonggwan—quiet contemplation—
is not a passive silence.
It is an attitude of first observing before judging,
of watching the movement of the mind before speaking.
Training our thinking in the age of AI must begin here.

When we read an answer generated by AI,
we resist the urge to accept it immediately.
We linger for a moment and ask:
Is this phrasing excessive?
Is the judgment too hasty?
Where is my own thinking in this?
The moment we ask these questions,
the initiative of thought returns to us.

Editing a sentence becomes an excellent exercise in thinking.
As we remove a single word
or slow the pace of a single line,
we slow ourselves down as well.
Rather than competing with the speed of AI,
we step slightly aside from it.

Contemplative thinking does not rush to conclusions.
AI speaks with certainty,
but human thought naturally contains hesitation.
Within that hesitation,
responsibility, ethics, and reflection take root.

For this reason, writing in the age of AI
does not need to become more elaborate.
Instead, it calls for saying less,
judging more slowly,
and dwelling longer on a single sentence.
In that deliberate slowness,
we remain human.

AI can generate sentences,
but it cannot live out an attitude of thought on our behalf.
To pause, to observe,
and to delay judgment within silence—
this is the simplest and yet deepest form of thinking practice
by which humans preserve themselves in the age of AI.

Today again, I revise my sentences
and slow my thoughts.
In that unhurried time,
it is not AI’s thinking that grows,
but my own. ***

February 3, 2026
 

At Sungsunjae (崇善齋)

{Solti}

한국어 번역: https://www.ktown1st.com/blog/VALover/348340