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Cognitive migration is not just an individual journey; it is also a collective and institutional one. As AI reshapes the terrain of thought, judgment and coordination, the very foundations of our schools, governments, corporations and civic systems are being called into question.
Institutions, like people, now face the challenge of rapid change: “Rethinking” their purpose, adapting their structures and rediscovering what makes them essential in a world where machines can increasingly think, decide and produce. Like people who are undergoing cognitive migration, institutions — and the people who run them — must reassess what they were made for.
Discontinuity
Institutions are designed to promote continuity. Their purpose is to endure, to offer structure, legitimacy and coherence across time. It is those very attributes that contribute to trust. We rely on institutions not only to deliver services and enforce norms, but to provide a sense of order in a complex world. They are the long-arc vessels of civilization, meant to hold steady as individuals come and go. Without viable institutions, society risks upheaval and an increasingly uncertain future.
But today, many of our core institutions are reeling. Having long served as the scaffolding of modern life, they are being tested in ways that feel not only sudden, but systemic.
Some of this pressure comes from AI, which is rapidly reshaping the cognitive terrain on which these institutions were built. But AI is not the only force. The past two decades have brought rising public distrust, partisan fragmentation and challenges to institutional legitimacy that predate the generative AI technological wave. From increasing income inequality, to attacks on scientific process and consensus, to politicized courts, to declining university enrollments, the erosion of trust in our institutions has multiple causes, as well as compounding effects.
In this context, the arrival of increasingly capable AI systems is not merely another challenge. It is an accelerant, fuel to the fire of institutional disruption. This …