Personal | Concept Design
2026
Will human be the same in 2036?
A conceptual depiction of "How human will think in coming future?" Visual storytelling.
The challenge was to imagine a job that doesn’t exist yet, one the world would need by 2036. Instead of asking what AI will let us do, I asked what it might quietly take away: our habit of thinking for ourselves. If AI takes over more of our everyday thinking, what happens to the people, and the companies, that depend on original thought?
My answer was the Cognition Conservationist, a role built to protect original, independent thinking in an AI-saturated workplace. This case study walks through the research behind the problem, how I framed the need, and what the role would look like in practice.
Research
The Silent Fade
Nobody announces the day they stop thinking for themselves. It happens quietly, one delegated task at a time. I began by looking at what researchers and institutions were already saying. Work from SSRN, the National Library of Medicine, the American Psychological Association and BCG, all from 2025 to 2026, pointed the same way. Regular AI use may be reshaping how we cope, create and hold on to our skills, in our work and in daily life.
The pattern across these sources gave the project its name. The risk isn’t a sudden collapse of human thought. It’s a gradual fade that is easy to miss until it’s well under way.
Problem
The Origin of Cognitive Erosion
It began in 2022, when AI started producing ideas at scale. Today’s AI is trained on the abundance of human thought. But as AI replaces the effort of thinking, human thought itself may become scarcer. That sets up a loop: AI-generated ideas shape humans, and increasingly AI-shaped humans feed AI again.
Ideation
Habit of Thinking
The Cognition Conservationist is a role built for a future where thinking itself needs protecting. Sitting at the crossroads of creativity, product, culture, and psychology, this person helps companies keep curiosity alive as AI becomes part of everyday work. Rather than resisting AI, they design the habits, rituals, and human-to-human connections that keep originality and critical thought strong, so teams continue to question, imagine, and innovate on their own terms.
Designs
Cognition Conservationist
The Cognition Conservationist works in-house, bringing together people, culture, and AI to protect how a company thinks. Their toolkit includes brain mapping dashboards, judgement-building surveys, and divergence frameworks, and they collaborate with cognitive scientists, L&D specialists, and AI-ML experts. A typical day moves from tracking team cognition to designing ideation activities that strengthen divergent thinking, and ends by sharing insights with leadership. The aim is to show that a small gain in cognitive performance can drive a much larger business impact through original, out-of-the-box ideas.
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