When I think about Heidegger’s warning about technology, I cannot help but feel that it is already shaping us in ways that make us, in a sense, less capable. I don’t mean this as an insult, but more as a kind of déjà vu—that as technology develops, we gradually lose the most basic abilities that once defined human resilience. A simple example is the calculator. In places like China, there is still an emphasis on mastering calculation by hand, as seen in math competitions where speed and mental agility are celebrated. In contrast, in much of the Western world, the prevailing logic seems to be: why bother learning when a calculator or phone is always at hand? I’ve personally seen this difference—some bank tellers here count painfully slowly, while those trained elsewhere can compute in their heads almost instantly.

Another example is fire-making. Our ancestors knew how to light a fire with nothing but wood and sheer effort, yet most of us today cannot even imagine it without a lighter or stove. I’ve recently experienced this loss of basic resilience in my own life. My house is currently being remodeled, and in order to do it correctly, my contractor had to remove the lights and rewire some old harnesses. That left my house completely pitch black at night. Suddenly, even going to the restroom or taking a shower felt like a burden. I didn’t even have candles to light, and I realized just how unprepared I was without something as simple as electricity. It struck me how accustomed I’ve become to modern convenience, to the point where I take it for granted until it’s gone. It reminded me of that saying: What is a disease? A disease is when you finally realize you had that organ, because when it hurts, you notice its existence, whereas in its normal state, you never think about it at all.

AI makes this danger even clearer. It has the real potential to replace human labor—not only in repetitive or mechanical jobs, but even in creative and intellectual tasks. Should we make these advancements? Perhaps, if they truly improve our lives. But history shows a pattern: each time a basic task is taken away from us, we grow more dependent, to the point where convenience becomes the only measure of progress. That trade-off, rooted in human nature, is not always good. Just look at Tesla’s self-driving cars. People put on makeup, eat, or even sleep while the car drives itself. What once demanded skill and attention is now an afterthought. And at the end of the day, this reliance only makes us less capable.

It makes me wonder if this loss is inevitable. Human nature seems quick to trade effort for ease, even at the cost of understanding. Perhaps that is the real danger of technology—not that it empowers us, but that it tempts us to give up parts of ourselves until, one day, we may not even remember what we lost.