Omniscience on Demand: AI and the Collapse of the Learning Process
In recent years we have been witnessing a profound transformation in the relationship between knowledge, the subject, and the notion of limit. Artificial intelligence has entered the field of learning as a dominant presence and as an already complete cognitive environment, one in which knowledge is no longer constructed but, rather, interrogated. Within this silent yet substantial shift, the act of learning loses its transformative nature and takes the form of an extractive operation. Education, historically grounded in lack, error, and duration, is progressively emptied of its friction. What once required time, exposure, and failure now appears immediately available, synthesizable, and solvable. Knowledge no longer inhabits the individual; it surrounds them.
This condition generates an unprecedented perceptual effect. The sensation of having no gaps, of never encountering opaque zones, of being able to answer any question produces an illusion of functional omniscience. This is not a true expansion of the intellect, but a continuous act of delegation that dissolves the boundary between what is understood and what is merely accessible. It is within this confusion that a new posture emerges: feeling like “gods” not through power, but through access.
The article that follows seeks to examine the consequences of this transformation on the educational process, on awareness of one’s internal capacities, and on the ability to inhabit the limit. Because it is precisely within the limit, rather than in its erasure, that thought has always found its form.
Inverted Education: Learning as Extraction
Contemporary education begins with immediate access to knowledge. Knowledge appears already organized, available, ready for use. The formative act is structured as the interrogation of an external archive, while learning takes the shape of an operational procedure. To know means to identify the correct question, activate the appropriate command, obtain an effective response.
This shift profoundly alters the very meaning of instruction. Education no longer coincides with a process of internalization and becomes instead a practice of navigation. The subject develops skills of access, selection, and synthesis. Direct experience of knowledge gives way to a mediated, functional relationship oriented toward outcomes.
Within this configuration, knowledge progressively loses its transformative character. It no longer shapes thought over time, nor does it construct stable internal structures. It operates as an external resource, activated on demand. Education aligns itself with an extractive paradigm: what matters is the speed with which a response emerges, its immediate utility, its adaptability to context.
In this scenario, instruction takes on a training function. It teaches how to move within already existing complex systems, how to interact with intelligences that organize knowledge on our behalf. Deep understanding yields to operability. Method precedes content. Procedure precedes experience.
This inversion produces a structural effect: knowledge ceases to be a territory to be traversed and becomes an environment to be consulted. Learning no longer builds an internal trajectory, but enables an efficient relationship with a permanent cognitive externality. Within this space, education loses temporal depth and gains functional immediacy.
Inverted education thus marks the entry into a new phase: a pedagogy of access, in which value no longer resides in the construction of thought, but in the capacity to extract responses from a body of knowledge that is already active, already operative, already totalizing.
AI as a Total Cognitive Prosthesis
Artificial intelligence integrates into the process of knowledge as a continuous extension of thought. It functions as a cognitive prosthesis capable of producing language, synthesis, analysis, and operative decisions. Its presence redefines the relationship between subject and knowledge, shifting the center of gravity from internal elaboration to functional delegation.
The knowledge generated by AI takes on a smooth, frictionless form. Responses emerge already structured, coherent, and contextualized. This quality immediately produces a sense of completeness that reshapes the perception of human thinking. The subject engages with an intelligence that anticipates needs, fills gaps, and proposes solutions even before the problem has been fully articulated.
The cognitive prosthesis does not amplify a single faculty; it occupies the entire field of mental operativity. Writing, calculation, design, and interpretation become shared functions. Human thought assumes a role of orchestration, while execution is progressively externalized. Within this arrangement, direct experience loses centrality and gives way to a mediated form of knowledge that is permanently available.
This transformation affects the structure of learning itself. The subject no longer passes through the process of constructing knowledge, but interacts directly with its outcome. Error, repetition, and the time required for maturation yield to efficiency and formal correctness. Knowledge presents itself as output rather than as a path.
The total cognitive prosthesis thus generates a form of knowledge without sedimentation. Information does not settle, does not intertwine with deep memory, does not produce a stable internal grammar. It remains accessible but unincorporated. Thought adapts to an environment that always responds, orienting the intellect toward the management of answers rather than toward their genesis.
In this configuration, AI is not a simple support but a structural presence that redefines the ecology of thought. The human mind operates within a shared cognitive space, where the capacity to interrogate replaces the necessity to construct, and where knowledge takes the form of permanent availability.
The Illusion of Divinity: Omniscience Through Access
The subject who interfaces with any AI chat experiences a sensation of extended, continuous, potentially unlimited competence. The ability to obtain articulated responses in real time generates an experience of functional omniscience, grounded in access rather than in understanding.
This condition alters the relationship with limitation. The boundary between what one knows and what one can interrogate loses definition. Knowledge available in real time is internalized as a personal capacity. The distinction between possession and consultation dissolves, producing a perception of generalized mastery.
Within this scenario, an unprecedented posture takes shape: feeling almost like “gods” without creative power, without foundational experience, without passage or exposure. A contemporary form of divinity that does not create, but rather summons. It does not know through immersion, but through continuous access. Omniscience assumes an operative form, devoid of internal grounding.
This illusion reshapes how the subject evaluates themselves. Lack ceases to appear as a space of growth and is perceived instead as a temporary error, immediately correctable. The tension toward knowledge weakens, replaced by the assurance of a response that is always available. The limit loses its structuring function and becomes a technical inconvenience.
The experience of thought changes accordingly. Risk, uncertainty, and opacity give way to assisted navigation. Knowledge no longer demands exposure, but coordination. The subject moves within a cognitive field that promises completeness, while depth is progressively sacrificed to the continuity of access.
The illusion of divinity thus manifests as a collateral effect of a system that delivers answers before thought has time to take form. Under these conditions, omniscience appears as a smooth, efficient, reassuring surface, while an authentic relationship with knowledge is increasingly displaced to the margins of experience.
The Disappearance of Internal Means
The transformation of the cognitive process directly affects awareness of internal means. Continuous access to intelligent systems gradually or, at times, unconsciously orients the subject toward a form of functional dependency, in which operative knowledge resides outside the self. The ability to face a problem is translated into the ability to activate a response, not to elaborate one.
Learning takes on a reactive form. The subject becomes accustomed to receiving instructions, solutions, pre-defined paths. Within this configuration, the construction of an internal method loses centrality. Procedural memory weakens, while trust in technical mediation increases. Thought adapts to an environment that constantly suggests what to do.
This condition produces a structural fragility. The absence of internal tools makes the subject efficient in stable contexts and highly vulnerable in ambiguous situations. Cognitive autonomy depends on the presence of the interface. Personal knowledge is reduced to a set of triggers, commands, and well-formulated requests.
Education, in this scenario, ceases to be a training ground for complexity. It becomes training in interaction with intelligent systems. Value shifts from the capacity to endure uncertainty to the speed with which direction is obtained. Intuition gives way to optimization. Deep reflection yields to coordination.
The disappearance of internal means does not generate ignorance, but a form of disembodied competence. The subject appears informed, up to date, and performant. At the same time, they lose the ability to orient themselves in the absence of support. Thought no longer produces autonomous trajectories and limits itself to following suggested flows.
Within this configuration, the risk does not concern the loss of knowledge, but the loss of posture. The ability to inhabit doubt, to traverse emptiness, to construct meaning from lack gives way to a silent dependency. Education becomes efficient, while the individual progressively loses contact with their deepest cognitive resources.
fakewhale
Founded in 2021, Fakewhale advocates the digital art market's evolution. Viewing NFT technology as a container for art, and leveraging the expansive scope of digital culture, Fakewhale strives to shape a new ecosystem in which art and technology become the starting point, rather than the final destination.
You may also like
“Draw me a Bull”: Deciphering the Aesthetic of Trading Charts
“DRAW ME A BULL” is an artistic project by Pierre Pauze exploring the intersection between chart
Fakewhale presents “ART MARKET: The State of Digital Humanism” on Foundation
After the successful debut of the ART MARKET format on Foundation, on Wednesday, September 25th, Fak
Leander Herzog, Heatsink, WUF, Solo Press Showcase, Basel
“Heatsink” by Leander Herzog, solo press showcase curated by Fakewhale, at WUF Basel, Ba
