As the United States sprints headlong into an AI-dependent future, we’re ignoring a fundamental vulnerability: we are training an entire generation to lean on machines to think, decide, and act for us. Kids growing up with AI as default cognition are losing basic skills of reasoning, memory, and problem solving because they assume the answers are always a chat away. Meanwhile, critical infrastructure — data centers, power grids, communication networks — is increasingly intertwined with complex AI systems that most Americans don’t understand and can’t operate without.

That dependency isn’t just a technical risk — it’s a national security threat. If hostile actors like China, Russia, or even sophisticated independent hackers were to knock out key data centers or cripple the electrical grid, the AI lifelines the country depends on could vanish overnight. What happens when we’ve forgotten how to think for ourselves and the machines go dark? This isn’t speculation — it’s a warning we need to take seriously.