When the work of becoming you starts to feel optional. #
Posted June 5, 2026 [ Reviewed by Davia Sills
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Key points
- Cognitive surrender changes how we think.
- Emotional surrender changes how we connect.
- Existential surrender changes who we become.
Dante imagined the deepest circle of hell as frozen.
Most people remember the flames. They remember punishment and torment. What Dante placed at the very bottom was something different. The deepest circle was frozen, and all movement had stopped—its own literary version of absolute zero.
I’ve been thinking about that concept lately because it captures a possibility that rarely appears in discussions about artificial intelligence. We spend a great deal of time asking what AI will become. But another question might be what happens when the experiences that once shaped human beings become increasingly optional?
Recently, I’ve explored two ideas that share an interesting border. The first was cognitive surrender, the gradual transfer of human thinking to artificial intelligence. The second was emotional surrender, the temptation to replace difficult human engagement with AI interactions that ask less of us. As I worked through those ideas, I began to notice a larger pattern. The concerns weren’t confined to cognition or relationships. They appeared to touch three fundamental dimensions of human experience.
Cognitive surrender concerns how we think.
Emotional surrender concerns how we connect.
Existential surrender concerns who we become.
Together, they describe a shift that may accompany the rise of artificial intelligence. AI isn’t simply changing what we can do. It may also be changing which human burdens we remain willing to carry.
Let’s be clear: by existential surrender, I don’t mean abandoning life or purpose. I mean the gradual surrender of the experiences that shape us into who we become. The phrase sounds philosophical, but the phenomenon is surprisingly practical, and it emerges in the choices we make every single day.
How a Self Is Formed #
Generally speaking, we don’t feel human development as it happens. Yet that development, bumps and all, is what creates who we are. That journey is what shapes us.
We tend to think of growth as the accumulation of experience. I suspect that it might also be framed as the accumulation of resistance. A life without resistance sounds appealing until you think about how many distinctly human and critical capacities emerged in response to it. The list is as diverse as humanity itself. Patience develops because some things take time. Judgment develops because certainty is unavailable. Resilience develops because failure remains possible.
These observations are hardly new. What feels new is our growing ability to bypass many of the experiences that once shaped them. The friction of life was simply part of the environment in which human beings formed themselves.
When Resistance Becomes Optional #
Technology has typically reduced friction, often for the better. From the washing machine to the car to the search engine, the examples are common. Few people would argue that we should preserve inconvenience for its own sake.
But there’s more. Artificial intelligence reaches into a different layer of experience because it doesn’t just reduce physical effort. It increasingly reduces cognitive and emotional effort as well. These touch us in many ways. A difficult question can receive an immediate answer. A blank page can receive an immediate draft. A moment of uncertainty can receive immediate guidance. A lonely evening can receive immediate conversation. And the operative work here is immediate—the swift trip from A to B with little to no lived experience.
None of this is inherently problematic, and much of it is genuinely useful. What interests me is the cumulative effect. Historically, answers were scarce, and questions were abundant. We are moving toward a world where answers are becoming nearly infinite. The challenge may no longer be finding a response, but living within the question long enough to learn and even change.
The Cost of Stillness #
The risk I am describing doesn’t look like a decline; it looks like convenience. Nobody decides to stop developing as a person. We choose efficiency because it works and convenience because it feels rational. Each decision makes sense on its own. The concern appears only when viewed across time.
A person who rarely wrestles with uncertainty develops a different relationship with judgment. A relationship that never encounters difficulty develops a different depth. A goal pursued without meaningful risk leaves a different mark on the person pursuing it. The self isn’t built from answers alone. It’s built from encounters with questions, obstacles, failures, and ambiguities that cannot be resolved immediately.
Artificial intelligence can help us navigate those experiences. But it can also help us avoid them.
This is why Dante works so well here. It’s not that artificial intelligence leads to some technological version of hell. It’s because of the image itself—the stillness and frozen indifference. Movement matters, and that formative path from A to B. And so does the warmth of the human experience.
So, I think the deepest concern raised by existential surrender isn’t that AI will make us less intelligent or less productive. My central concern is that a life optimized for efficiency may gradually reduce the experiences that shape human beings. Yes, artificial intelligence will help us solve problems and extend human capability in remarkable ways. The challenge is recognizing which forms of friction remain essential to our self-formation.