The rapid adoption of AI is raising concerns about reading, reasoning and intellectual autonomy – with geopolitical implications.

From New York schools to China and the BRICS bloc, policymakers are beginning to consider how AI can augment rather than replace human capabilities.

BRICS may have an opportunity to develop a distinctly human-centred model of AI education that promotes cognitive sovereignty.

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The specter of a cognitive crisis haunts the globe, and this should become the target of several policies in the next few years.

For one thing, New York City has just imposed a one-year moratorium banning generative AI use, affecting roughly 600,000 children. High-school students will instead receive structured AI-literacy instruction. The move, announced by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, mentions concerns over independent problem-solving, human interaction and the development of cognition.

This is a striking policy shift in the largest US school system. Yet this is not an isolated measure: several major geopolitical actors have already begun addressing an emerging literacy and reasoning crisis.

In their 2025 “Leaders’ Statement on Global AI Governance”, BRICS leaders warned that excessive reliance on AI may affect “cognition, decision-making processes, and the ability to navigate complex information landscapes.” They called for “digital literacy”, critical evaluation of AI-generated content, understanding of algorithmic biases, and the cultivation of “intellectual autonomy”, and “critical thinking” skills.

BRICS education ministers in turn stated that AI should complement rather than replace educators and the human aspects of teaching. More recently, they adopted a joint declaration in Bhubaneswar calling for the safe, ethical and human-centred use of AI in education.

This global problem is already measurable: studies document a decline in sustained reading and writing among college students, while research links non-critical ChatGPT use to weaker educational outcomes.

The concern extends to digital technology more broadly, with impacts on brain development. MRI research has even associated excessive screen use in preschoolers with lower white-matter integrity in areas involved in language, literacy and executive function – while a 2026 review found that earlier screen use negatively predicted later executive-function difficulties in most studies.

A growing literature describes this as cerebral offloading: instead of extending our abilities, we increasingly delegate them. A 2026 paper describes a self-reinforcing cycle of reduced effort, weaker agency and greater dependence on AI, proposing a simple principle: “scaffold, do not substitute.”

Sustained reading requires attention, working memory, inference and abstraction. The danger, therefore, is not merely “cheating”: if universities credential students who can produce AI-mediated text without first developing the capacity to understand it, societies may end up with sophisticated tools – but diminished independent information-processing abilities. And this has civilizational and geopolitical impacts.

This topic is potentially connected with the broader issue of technological sovereignty: integrating the tool while strengthening the human operator, so to speak. AI is thus not simply a neutral productivity booster.

In this regard, China has responded in a very clear manner: its approach is not to “ban” AI but to accelerate adoption while deliberately cultivating the human capabilities needed to operate it. In 2024 the Ministry of Education issued guidelines on AI literacy for primary and secondary schools, emphasizing thinking skills.

A national AI general-education framework followed in 2025, organizing learning by age around concepts, applications, ethics and impacts. Guidelines restrict open-ended generative AI for younger pupils. Then, in April 2026 Beijing launched an “AI + Education Action Plan” that makes AI a foundational university subject while combining it with humanities to cultivate curiosity and complex problem-solving.

Russia’s AI strategy adds an important dimension to the emerging sovereignty debate. Its 2024 National AI Strategy combines technological sovereignty with a “humanistic approach,” respect for human autonomy and protection of human intellectual abilities. Moscow has also framed dependence on foreign generative AI as a question of national, technological and value-based sovereignty, warning that foreign AI systems can influence entire populations.

China and Russia thereby offer clear examples of a sovereignty-oriented approach to AI, emphasizing domestic capabilities, human agency and technological independence.

The EU, mirroring UNESCO, has in turn focused on ethical guardrails.

BRICS, meanwhile, as a group, is beginning to frame AI governance around development, technological autonomy and human-centred education – while warning against excessive reliance and unequal access.

Here the concept of “cognitive sovereignty” becomes decisive. I’ve commented before on the discussions of digital sovereignty within BRICS, when the group first committed itself to fair data governance and reduced reliance on external platforms. Cognitive sovereignty is the logical next layer.

Possessing its own domestic models means little if the population becomes intellectually dependent on them (“over-reliance”). The paradox here is that AI can simultaneously increase a country’s technological power and decrease its intellectual autonomy: at that point, cognitive autonomy becomes a national-security as well as an educational concern.

BRICS countries, seeking to move up the value chain, certainly have structural reasons to care. The emergence of an AI-educated generation also carries the risk of a developmental trap, impacting human capital and bringing greater dependence. 

An inverse digital divide could therefore emerge: elite institutions may protect unaided intellectual development while less-resourced systems increasingly adopt AI as a cheap substitute for educational resources.

A recent paper has proposed the aforementioned term “cognitive sovereignty” for the ability of individuals, groups and nations to preserve autonomous thought in the age of powerful AI. The concept may be useful for thinking about the geopolitical implications of AI dependence.

In any case, BRICS is well positioned to turn its statements into practice. It could, for example, develop common educational guidelines distinguishing AI substitution from AI “scaffolding”: systems that ask questions, challenge reasoning, provide feedback and require students to demonstrate understanding rather than simply supplying answers. The group could thereby become a laboratory for an education model designed to preserve human cognitive autonomy.

In all likelihood, the next AI divide will not unfold between countries that have AI and those that do not – but rather between societies that use AI to boost human intelligence and those that allow it to “substitute” for it. The cognitive arms race has thus already begun.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Uriel Araujo, Anthropology PhD, is a social scientist specializing in ethnic and religious conflicts, with extensive research on geopolitical dynamics and cultural interactions. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

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