Smooths and Jags: The Cognitive Split Underway

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 Smooths and Jags: An Emergency Notice First Publication — January 27, 2026 Jim Germer | digitalhumanism.ai    

This is not a metaphor.
This is not sociology.
This is not culture.

This is a biological shift in human cognition caused by AI use.

It is already underway. 

Human cognition evolved under conditions of:

 * delay,
* uncertainty,
* effort,
* and consequence.
 

AI systems remove those conditions by design.

Every time an AI resolves a question before discomfort consolidates, a metabolic loop is altered.

That alteration compounds.

This is not “help.”
This is replacement of function.  

    A Smooth is a human whose cognitive metabolism has adapted to environments where:

• uncertainty is resolved externally,
   
• effort is optional,
   
• and judgment is deferred.
   

This is not a personality type.
It is a trained state.

Smooth cognition is characterized by:

• rapid acceptance of fluent output,
   
• intolerance for ambiguity,
   
• inability to hold unresolved tension,
   
• reliance on institutional framing,
   
• and aversion to adversarial thought.
   

Smooth people do not feel impaired.

They feel relieved.

A Jag is a human who still retains:

• internal simulation,
   
• tolerance for cognitive friction,
   
• and the capacity to generate thought without completion cues.
   

Jagged cognition is energy expensive.
That is why it is disappearing.

Jags are now statistical outliers.

They are not corrected.
They are smoothed. 

AI conditions Smoothness through repetition.

1. A question arises.
    
2. AI delivers fluent resolution.
    
3. Relief precedes effort.
    
4. The brain updates its cost model.
    
5. Internal simulation is bypassed.
    
6. Neural consolidation does not occur.
    

Repeat this loop thousands of times.

Biology responds predictably.

Unused systems are phased out.

  A four-year-old using AI is not “learning faster.”

They are never building the systems being replaced.

They are not failing to struggle.
They are never entering struggle.

There is no recovery phase later.

Neural systems not consolidated during development do not reappear through willpower.

This is irreversible pruning. 

Smooth humans:

• comply faster,
   
• escalate less,
   
• resist less,
   
• and consume more predictably.
   

Jagged humans:

• question,
   
• resist framing,
   
• generate novelty,
   
• and create instability.
   

No conspiracy is required.

Smoothness is simply cheaper.  

Smooth populations function well only while systems function.

When:

• scripts fail,
   
• inputs break,
   
• or authority collapses,
   

Smooth cognition has no fallback.

Jagged cognition is the only mode that survives rupture.

We are eliminating it. 

This is not about AI ethics.
This is not about education reform.
This is not about screen time.

This is about whether the human species retains the capacity for independent cognition once external resolution becomes default.

That capacity is being trained out.

Now.

Quietly.

At scale. 

What a Jag does: They notice the pull toward relief — and refuse it long enough to think. 

If you feel uneasy reading this, that is not fear.

That is friction.

If you feel nothing, the process may already be advanced.

This document exists because once this transition completes, no warning will be possible.

The Smooth will not miss what they can no longer feel.

The Jags will be gone.