In boardrooms and Slack channels around the world, one question is quietly gaining urgency: If AI can do the legwork, what happens to our ability to think for ourselves?For Josh Hart, co-founder and CTO of YuLife, this is more than just a philosophical thought experiment: it's a real and present dilemma for modern work. In a recent LinkedIn post, Josh argued that because AI tools like ChatGPT are trained on the past, they can remix, reshape, and accelerate, but ultimately, they can't create something truly original.In an interview expanding on those ideas, Josh spoke candidly about what we gain and lose in the pursuit of automation, and why preserving human perspective is the key to innovation.The Myth of Machine Originality"The fabulous thing about being human is that we have these moments — epiphanies, shifts in thinking, transformations," Josh explains, "where we gain a new perspective, and suddenly, we can see the world in a different way."For Josh, creativity in the workplace isn’t about novelty for its own sake. Its value lies in developing fresh angles on persistent problems. That kind of perspective-shifting doesn't come from probability models or remixing training data. It stems from lived experience, emotion, and reflection — things that AI doesn't possess."In its current form, AI is derivative of us. It’s recycling our thinking," he says. "It might help us broaden our horizons, but it’s not leading us somewhere new."Why AI Feels So HumanOne of Josh's more intriguing reflections draws from sci-fi: how AI models differ from the robotic minds imagined by early authors like Isaac Asimov. Asimov's famed "positronic brain" was logical and deterministic. If-this-then-that.Today's generative AI models, Josh notes, don’t operate on logic trees. They work probabilistically, predicting the next most likely word in a sequence."That makes them feel more like us," Josh says. "They lie, not because they intend to, but because they’re not reasoning — they’re approximating. They’re eerily human-like in that way."In a digital world where fiction increasingly feels like fact, Josh worries we're drifting from critical thinking into a culture of convenient truths, fed by machines that tell us what we want to hear, not what we need to wrestle with.A Creative Companion, Not a Creative ForceDespite the warnings, Josh insists that he isn’t anti-AI and, in fact, he uses it every day in product development at YuLife."As a product person, I feel like I have a creative companion," he says. "If I'm stuck or looking for a different perspective, I can use AI to help me shift how I'm thinking."But while it has its uses, Josh says he draws a line: AI can help define what is now based on the past, not what should come next. It’s a tool for reframing, not for vision-setting."It’s like Google on steroids," he said. "But it’s still drawing from what already exists."The Slow Death of Critical ThinkingJosh is particularly concerned about the collective effects of cognitive offloading, or the outsourcing of our mental effort to machines."We’re losing our ability to do the hard work of structuring thought," he explains. "It takes effort to build the infrastructure of an idea from scratch. If AI does all the heavy lifting, we stop exercising those muscles."He likens it to the loss of artisanal skills. Once upon a time, humans made exquisite goods by hand, but over time, cheaper materials and mass production replaced those traditions. And in some cases, human knowledge was lost entirely."We literally forgot how to make muslin,” Josh points out. “This is a beautiful fabric once used for babies’ clothing or swaddles, but humans no longer know how to make it by hand. That kind of forgetting can happen with thinking, too."Innovation in a Capitalist RealitySo, how should business leaders respond? Can we balance efficiency and originality? Josh's answer is unsparing."You can't. Not really," he says. "We live in a capitalist society. If you’re not leveraging AI to its greatest capability, someone else will be."The market, he notes, is already rewarding companies that use AI to strip out headcount. Small teams powered by automation are being valued at levels previously reserved for large organisations."Right now, those who engage the human element don’t win. That’s the brutal truth."But he stresses, this isn’t fatalism; it’s a warning. There is a short window where AI is still novel and still being explored. But once the arbitrage ends, Josh believes we may face a generation of workers who never learned how to think independently.Holding Space for PerspectiveIf businesses can’t afford to ignore AI, they also can’t afford to ignore the wellbeing of their people. For Josh, that’s where leaders have an opportunity, not to resist change, but to shape how it's implemented."Perspective comes from experience, from emotional space, from rest," he said. "If you want your people to innovate, you need to give them time to think, not just time to produce."He points to YuLife’s own approach: using gamification to encourage healthy habits and psychological safety. By embedding wellbeing into company culture, they aim to make space for the human element, even in an AI-powered world.The Future Isn’t BinaryThe future Josh imagines isn't one where humans compete with machines, but where the value of being human is actively protected."We’re at risk of forgetting how to think deeply," he said. "But we don’t have to. We can still choose to prioritise originality, perspective, and wellbeing. We just have to be intentional about it."In the age of automation, the most powerful thing a company can do may not be to out-compute its rivals, but to out-think them.