In early July, L\u00fcnendonk & Hossenfelder in Frankfurt announced its latest industry study on auditing, to be released in August. The study lists revenue rankings and cites a figure that stands out: 57 percent of the firms surveyed expect a sharp decline in the number of new entrants to the profession by 2030. The F.A.Z. report on this topic includes a sentence that\u2019s easy to overlook. Heike Wieland-Bl\u00f6se, spokesperson for the Grant Thornton Executive Board and honorary professor in D\u00fcsseldorf, says: \u201cKnowledge has become modular.\u201d For employers, what will matter in the future is whether applicants have learned how to think. They can acquire specific methods later on thanks to digital tools. <\/p>\n\n
As a result, the certificate is losing its significance as a selection criterion\u2014and from a source one would not have expected. No educational theory, no debate on competencies, no theoretical framework. A certified public accountant simply states what her industry is looking for. <\/p>\n\n
The question remains: what does this statement require? A transcript could be verified, but it was of little use: it measured perseverance within an institution. Whether someone could get to the bottom of a problem was never reflected in it. \u201cHaving learned to think\u201d is a better criterion, but it cannot be verified. If the verifiable hurdle is removed without anything else verifiable taking its place, then demeanor, fluency, connections, and background become the deciding factors\u2014in other words, the old markers of the elite, not the promises of meritocracy. <\/p>\n\n
Of all times, this question is coming up again\u2014especially now that it\u2019s truly crucial for society to place the best people in the right positions. But who are the best people for each position? At a time when every language model can instantly generate texts on command that appear to be the result of thought\u2014coherent, plausible, and carefully worded in all the right places\u2014anyone who wants to recognize thought by its results faces a problem, because those results are now readily available at will. <\/p>\n\n
The usual response to this is that we simply need to use AI critically. This falls short because it considers only the supply side\u2014that is, the AI output. What\u2019s more interesting is why we accept this supply so readily. There is an answer to that. It\u2019s seventy-five years old\u2014and uncomfortable. <\/p>\n\n
First, let’s look at the issue of simultaneity discussed in the same study.<\/p>\n\n
Those who started out in auditing and consulting learned the business through routine work: researching data, creating spreadsheets, and obtaining confirmations from creditors and debtors. It was tedious work that helped you get to know the field, because you had to process a thousand individual cases before you were allowed to assess your first one on your own. It is precisely this work that machines now handle. But how do you take the next step, since the skill is still required, even as the place where you used to acquire it disappears? <\/p>\n\n
How does this affect people and the way our society is organized, as we used to know it?<\/p>\n\n
Generative AI can be interpreted as an authoritarian model that appropriates public knowledge and repackages it for profit. Obediently and compliantly, it takes over people\u2019s thinking and thereby colonizes them. But: A language model doesn\u2019t command anything. It merely delivers something that looks finished. Therein lies the effect\u2014one to which one can surrender\u2014or not. <\/p>\n\n
The authority lies in the form: complete sentences, a clear structure, and well-considered qualifications in the very places where an expert would place them. A claim to power would be easier to spot. A text that looks like this has already shifted the burden of proof before you\u2019ve even read it. It sounds so reasonable. And disagreeing takes effort. Agreeing, on the other hand, costs nothing. Once you\u2019ve adopted it, you can pass it on as your own in seconds. How awesome is that? <\/p>\n\n
It\u2019s not mandatory. It\u2019s a perk, and you accept perks\u2014whether in the form of Payback points or a finished text. If you want to\u2014or have to. For example, to get a certificate that you might need to show in the future. <\/p>\n\n
Very little has been learned from this so far. To date, this has been rigorously examined in only two narrow contexts. A randomized trial involving developers tasked with learning a new programming library found that AI support led to poorer conceptual understanding, poorer code reading, and poorer debugging, with no significant gain in productivity on average. An EEG study at MIT found weaker neural connectivity and poorer recall of one\u2019s own arguments during essay writing; however, it involved only eighteen participants per group in the crucial session and is described by the authors themselves as preliminary. Neither study provides evidence for knowledge work in the narrower sense\u2014that is, for analysis and contextualization within a specialized field. Nevertheless, both point in the same direction: those who think for themselves first and then reach for the tool fare better. That is the extent of the current evidence, and it is sufficient to support the suspicion. <\/p>\n\n
Before you get too excited: It was almost exactly the same back in the days of cramming for exams. In other words, the classic \u201cknowledge-transfer\u201d charade. <\/p>\n\n
Let’s take this a step further and question the conventional narrative. It describes what technology does to us\u2014the easy part, because it doesn’t put anyone on the spot. <\/p>\n\n
The other half was formulated in 1950 by a research group led by Adorno. It investigated why people seek domination. The authoritarian character, as described in the studies, demands clear hierarchies and relief from powerlessness. It rejects introspection and ambiguity, adheres to black-and-white patterns, and submits emotionally to the authorities of its own group. The offer of submission is not merely endured\u2014it is actively sought. <\/p>\n\n
That\u2019s exactly what the AI\u2019s user interface does. The simple answer to a complex question makes things easier, and that\u2019s its whole advantage. It\u2019s enough. In a world that\u2019s become overwhelming enough as it is, having something that always responds immediately and never leaves you with doubts is a very good deal. <\/p>\n\n
That is my interpretation. Research on authoritarianism has never examined linguistic models; it is not familiar with them. <\/p>\n\n
It would be a mistake to treat this as a characteristic of AI.<\/p>\n\n
Every industry that wants to sell on a large scale targets the same structure. For forty years, the fossil fuel industry has provided the simple answer to the complex energy question. The automotive industry sells freedom\u2014and means a product. The chemical industry sells safety to the agricultural sector, the healthcare industry, and for all of our well-being. And the education industry? It sells a catalog of competencies, because a catalog is easier to buy than an open-ended question. Mainstream thinking prevails everywhere because it connects to a need that was already there. This has little to do with whether it\u2019s actually correct. <\/p>\n\n
In the transition from an industrial society to an information society, artificial intelligence draws on and condenses the available knowledge. The condensation of time and space is how growth arises in this system. You don\u2019t have to like it, but it is the logic within which we operate, and this very condensation is also the potential from which something useful and new can emerge. <\/p>\n\n
This leads to an uncomfortable symmetry. Those who have accepted industrial society\u2014along with its hold on the workforce and the associated social safety nets\u2014for decades have little reason to be outraged by the next step. Outrage over AI is often outrage over the fact that this time, it\u2019s their own class that\u2019s being affected. <\/p>\n\n
Steffen Kampeter, CEO of the BDA, made an observation a few days ago in an interview with Table. Media that cannot be ignored, even if one knows who made it. The balance of power within the DGB is shifting. The public sector is growing, the public-sector share of the economy exceeds 50 percent, and this is strengthening the Verdi labor federation at the expense of the traditional industrial unions, which for decades have managed the balance between companies and employees. His comment on this: The public sector is familiar with high energy costs, Asian competitors, and bankruptcies\u2014but only from the media, not from its own experience. <\/p>\n\n
This includes the trade-off. Kampeter is a lobbyist; his conclusions reflect his association\u2019s agenda: lower social security contributions, relax labor laws. The reference to Helmut Kohl\u2014for whom socialism began when the public-sector share of the economy exceeded 50 percent\u2014is a rhetorical device and remains just that. And his grand narrative, \u201cWork holds this society together,\u201d is itself a simplistic answer to a complex question\u2014especially in a decade in which the volume of paid work is shrinking despite all political appeals, and only about 40 percent of the potential labor force is now employed under standard working conditions. <\/p>\n\n
Both are true at the same time. The observation about being out of touch with the market is not invalidated simply because it comes from an employers\u2019 association. Anyone who dismisses it based on the sender\u2019s address is doing exactly what this text is about: they\u2019re categorizing people by camp and skipping the analysis. <\/p>\n\n
And this is where things get uncomfortable for one\u2019s own side. Authoritarianism isn\u2019t a trait exclusive to others. The rejection of ambiguity, the black-and-white mindset, and the emotional submission to the authorities of one\u2019s own group function just as well in enlightened circles\u2014only with the roles reversed. Those who believe they\u2019re on the right side stop questioning. It\u2019s the same mechanism that makes it so easy to agree with the language model. <\/p>\n\n
The obvious conclusion is this: become aware of your own authoritarian tendencies, use the machine as a counterpart rather than an oracle, and rely on your own reason. Kant wrote this down in 1784, and it\u2019s still true today. <\/p>\n\n
\n\u201cEnlightenment is man\u2019s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one\u2019s own understanding without the guidance of another.\u201d \u2014Immanuel Kant<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
I’m writing this sentence. Now, here’s the problem with it. <\/p>\n\n
Adorno was suspicious of precisely this movement, for three reasons, all of which are valid. First, the call reduces a structural problem to an individual one: people are told to give up their comforts, while the conditions that produce them remain untouched. Second, those who claim to know what it truly means to be enlightened place themselves at the top of a new hierarchy. Third, as soon as resistance is formulated as advice and sold in courses, it has long since become part of the system. <\/p>\n\n
A blog post that recommends \u201cthink for yourself\u201d is itself part of the education industry, offering a simple answer. There\u2019s no arguing that away\u2014only acknowledging it. <\/p>\n\n
What remains is smaller and more inconvenient than an attitude: a process. It manifests itself in three ways in everyday work. In the order of priority\u2014that is, whether one\u2019s own perspective comes before the tool or after it. In the way questions are posed\u2014that is, whether one demands explanations or accepts results. And in the willingness to leave a contradiction unresolved\u2014one that cannot be resolved\u2014rather than smoothing it over to turn it into a recommendation for action. <\/p>\n\n
So, back to the selection criterion. \u201cWhether someone has learned to think\u201d describes an activity, not a level of achievement. It stops as soon as you stop doing it. It cannot be tested. It can be observed\u2014in others, and with considerably more effort, in oneself. <\/p>\n\n
This text also came across to you as well-organized and plausible. That is not an argument for its accuracy. <\/p>\n\n
\n\n