Merryn Talks Money What If AI’s Biggest Impact Isn’t Jobs, But Minds?
20 snips
May 11, 2026 
Tom Slater, investment manager and partner at Baillie Gifford who runs the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and writes on tech and investing, discusses AI reshaping how we think. He explores cultural shifts, how AI alters idea transmission and learning, risks of passive reliance, threats to training pathways and inequality, and skills needed to orchestrate AI effectively.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Cultural Technology Can Rewire Brains
- Cultural technologies like reading rewired human brains by repurposing face-recognition areas, showing culture can change physiology quickly.
- Tom Slater cites reading spreading and thickening interhemispheric connections as an example of rapid cognitive rewiring.
Lost Navigation Skill From Using Sat Nav
- Slater describes losing navigation skills after relying on sat‑nav as an example of neglected cognitive ability.
- He says frequent outsourcing of tasks causes brain regions to atrophy from disuse, reducing capability.
AI Controls How Ideas Spread
- AI now controls variation, transmission, and selection of ideas, concentrating what people see and think.
- Slater notes dominant systems give millions similar answers and algorithms amplify or silence ideas across culture.
