Why ChatGPT-5 Is Taking Us One Step Closer To Agency Decay

Forbes

3 days ago

We have one additional problem. The latest iteration of ChatGPT has arrived and it's taking us one step closer to agency decay: the subtle, but steady, erosion of our capacity, and volition, for independent thought and action. This isn't a hyperbolic claim; it's the predictable outcome of our minds interacting with increasingly sophisticated cognitive prosthetics.
The Unified ChatGPT-5 Trap
Previous versions of ChatGPT, such as GPT-4o and its specialized variants, required a moment of conscious choice. Users had to select the appropriate model for a given task, whether it was a quick response or a complex, multi-step problem. This slight friction, though minor, required a moment of metacognitive awareness. Users had to ask, "Is this problem simple or complex? Should I use a reasoning model or a quick-response model?" This practice, in itself, is a fundamental cognitive skill.
With ChatGPT-5, that friction is gone. The new model automatically routes queries to either a fast or "deep thinking" mode, making the choice invisible. The system, not the user, decides whether to apply reasoning or pattern matching. As a result, users lose practice in the fundamental skill of classifying and framing problems.
Consider the mental process involved when you approach a complex business problem. Traditionally, you would pause, recognize the complexity, break it into components, and consider multiple perspectives. This metacognitive process — thinking about thinking — is what develops cognitive muscle memory. By generating comprehensive solutions with minimal prompting, ChatGPT-5 removes the need for these mental rehearsals, creating a skill gap between competence and performance.
This cognitive outsourcing is further amplified by the commercial model. OpenAI's tiered access strategy offers a $200/month Pro subscription for unlimited usage, while free users hit usage limits precisely when their dependency is at its peak. This is a form of behavioral conditioning disguised as a pricing strategy. The system creates dependency through a cycle of scarcity and relief, encouraging users to pay for unrestricted access to a cognitive shortcut.
Invisible Substitution And The Paradox Of Expertise
Human cognition is inherently efficient; given the choice between mental effort and mental ease, we almost always choose ease. Research suggests that AI assistants can accelerate skill decay among experts. It's a measurable phenomenon.
ChatGPT-5, however, presents a more insidious form of substitution because its outputs often surpass human performance. Unlike previous AI generations that produced obviously artificial text, ChatGPT-5's responses frequently exceed what most professionals could generate independently. This leads to a "competence illusion," where you feel highly capable while your actual skills atrophy. The unified architecture makes this substitution nearly undetectable. When the AI automatically chooses between reasoning and pattern matching, users lose awareness of which cognitive processes are being outsourced. For example, a marketing professional requesting a campaign strategy no longer practices the mental work of stakeholder analysis, competitive positioning, or creative synthesis. The AI handles these processes invisibly, and the professional is left to simply review the output.
This dynamic also presents an expertise paradox. Expertise relies on deliberate practice to build cognitive schemas — mental frameworks that allow for rapid pattern recognition and intuitive problem-solving. By automatically handling reasoning, ChatGPT-5 disrupts the very struggle that builds expertise. Take legal reasoning, for instance. Developing legal expertise requires repeated practice in case analysis, precedent interpretation, and argument construction. Each iteration strengthens the neural pathways associated with legal thinking. When ChatGPT-5 generates comprehensive legal briefs, attorneys shift their work from creation to evaluation. While this appears efficient and leads to faster, high-quality work, the attorney maintains professional confidence while gradually losing the ability to construct complex legal arguments from first principles.
ChatGPT-5's Subscription Psychology And Metacognition
OpenAI's tiered pricing model, where Pro subscribers get unlimited access while others face restrictions, is not accidental. The pricing structure exploits predictable human biases. First, loss aversion: once users experience unrestricted AI assistance, limitations feel like a loss rather than an absence of a gain. Second, present bias: the immediate pain of thinking through problems manually outweighs abstract future concerns about skill atrophy. Third, social proof: as organizations adopt Pro subscriptions to maintain a competitive edge, individual resistance to paying for the service appears irrational.
This commercial model creates a form of "vendor lock-in" for cognition. Users don't just become dependent on the service; they become dependent on outsourcing the cognitive processes they once performed independently.
At the core of human intelligence is metacognition — the awareness of our own thinking processes. When we encounter a problem, our conscious minds assess difficulty, allocate attention, choose strategies, and monitor progress. These metacognitive skills are what allow our intelligence to be adaptable and transferable across domains. ChatGPT-5's seamless operation bypasses metacognitive development. Users describe a problem and receive a solution without practicing the intermediate cognitive steps. The thinking happens inside the AI, invisible to human observation. This creates a metacognition gap, where users lose awareness of how complex thinking actually works.
This gap has significant cascading effects. People may become poor judges of problem complexity, unrealistic about timelines, and overconfident in AI-generated solutions they cannot independently evaluate. Most concerning, they lose the ability to recognize when problems require uniquely human insights.
Four Simple A's To Build Cognitive Resistance
An exit from this dynamic requires conscious cognitive resistance — deliberately choosing harder paths when easier options exist. This goes against our natural efficiency-seeking behavior and requires a systematic approach. Here is a simple framework to guide this resistance:
Rather than complete AI-abstinence the ambition of this logic is conscious cognitive maintenance. In an environment where machines handle increasingly complex tasks, uniquely human capabilities become more valuable, not less — that makes them twice precious, and important to preserve in a proactive way.
ChatGPT-5 represents a remarkable technological achievement. Managed with care it might reveal its greatest value in amplifying human thinking rather than putting it ad acta. The challenge is to curate an active mental partnership that makes best use of all our assets – natural and artificial. The choice is still ours, but the window is closing. The question isn't whether we can afford to maintain our human skillset; it's whether we can afford to lose them..