On a recent episode of the *Afford Anything Podcast*, author Lorraine Marchand warned that excessive reliance on AI can weaken reasoning and expertise, noting that IQ scores have "steadily declined since 1970 when the calculator came on the scene." Marchand stated that workers who outsource thinking to AI may stop developing the judgment required for jobs that remain five years from now, explaining that "when you don't have a true understanding of a subject matter... your brain doesn't retain it." She cited a Cornell-trained computer engineer at Amazon who was told to stop coding and write prompts instead, and was warned that "within 2 years the AI is going to completely do her job autonomously." The financial consequences of such displacement are significant: a senior engineer displaced from a $220,000 role to a $130,000 one forfeits roughly $450,000 over five years, excluding lost retirement growth.