By Christian B. Miller
Publication Date: 2026-06-04 12:19:00
Growing up, teachers gave me research papers that required a trip to the library or, later, searching for relevant material on the Internet. If the work was to end well, we students had to patiently comb through mountains of material and synthesize what we discovered into a coherent argument, well supported by evidence.
Without us knowing it at the time, our teachers gave us the chance to develop our patience.
This opportunity is rapidly disappearing with the increasing use of artificial intelligence tools. Now you can have an AI do everything from schoolwork to legal writing, sermon preparation, vacation planning, work emails, and academic research. Researchers are already documenting how the use of AI tools in these contexts is likely to impair critical thinking skills.
What hasn’t been appreciated, however, is the impact of AI on patience. As a philosopher who has written extensively about virtue, including the virtue of patience, I am particularly concerned about…
