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Tom Slater | AI, Productivity and the Surprising Risk No One’s Talking About | Merryn Talks Money, Sonic AI
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AI, Productivity and the Surprising Risk No One’s Talking About | Merryn Talks Money
Merryn Talks Money
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May 11, 2026
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36:16
Interview
AI, Productivity and the Surprising Risk No One’s Talking About | Merryn Talks Money
From
Merryn Talks Money
Tom Slater
(Manager, Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust & Head of U.S. Equities, Baillie Gifford, guest)
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Executive Summary
The primary impact of AI is not job displacement but the fundamental reshaping of human cognition and skills, a concept the guest calls 'coming for your mind.' Over-reliance on AI creates a paradox: it improves immediate task performance while degrading the underlying human capabilities, leading to skill atrophy and an inability to critically evaluate AI outputs.
AI is a powerful force in cultural evolution, controlling the variation, transmission, and selection of ideas, which centralizes knowledge and explains strategic moves like Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter.
The adoption of AI is poised to dramatically widen inequality within companies (between elite AI engineers and other staff), between firms, and geopolitically between AI-producing nations (US, China) and consumer nations.
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Cognitive Atrophy and Skill Degradation
AI's Role in Cultural Evolution
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