Creativity means breaking the rules – Henning Beck on thinking in the age of AI.

Published on October 15, 2025

More Input, less overview - and who’s really in control?

The digital world is accelerating our thinking, while also pushing it to its limits. Information flows are constant, and notifications structure our daily lives. "We’re processing more information than ever before," says Dr. Henning Beck, "but we can’t handle an infinite amount of data equally well, nor can we multitask effectively."

The natural reaction? Offload cognitive tasks to technology: navigation systems, translation tools, calendar reminders — and increasingly, AI. But Beck warns against falling into a convenient trap, quoting Kant: 'I do not need to think, so long as I can pay.' And that, he emphasizes, is precisely the mistake we must avoid.

Using technology without getting used by it

Henning Beck isn’t being a pessimist about tech - he’s offering a how-to guide for the 21st century. Tools should lighten the load, but the big decisions still need to be made by people.

"The real trick will be not becoming too dependent on new tech—while still using it effectively."

What matters isn’t how fast machines are, but how their output fits into human goals, disagreement, and values.

Linking is easy, inventing is hard.

According to Henning Beck, the very fact that the human brain doesn’t think perfectly is actually its strength—especially in the age of ChatGPT and similar tools. He makes a distinction between two types of creativity:

Light creativity—spotting patterns, listing ideas, generating variations—is where large language models thrive.

“The easy part of creativity is about making connections. Steve Jobs called it ‘Creativity is just connecting the dots.’ Think of tasks like: Come up with 20 uses for a brick. Write 20 taglines for a new ad campaign. Design 20 new logos. That kind of problem is already solved by large language models.”

Heavy (or deep) creativity, he says, starts where routines stop:

“Break the rules on purpose to create something completely new. That’s exactly where human thinking will find its future niche.”

Historically, this kind of thinking has been the driving force behind innovation—in art, music, and business models.

Critical thinking as our operating system

Artificial intelligence today can analyze, make predictions—even write texts. So what essential skills does the human brain still bring to the table? Henning Beck lists a series of cognitive abilities that apply equally to leadership, product development, and everyday life:

“Asking questions, trying things out, challenging rules, thinking critically, reasoning backward from outcomes, questioning ourselves, understanding causes, adapting to entirely new problems, and anticipating the unexpected. In short, thinking critically.”

Intelligence is not the same as thinking

Yes, machines already outperform us on tests.

“In any intelligence test, a large language model will score higher than a human,” says Henning Beck. “But does that mean it actually thinks better? Probably not. You can be a high-IQ savant with a score of 190 and still struggle to get anywhere in life. That’s because intelligence is only one small part of what thinking really is. What truly defines us as humans is our ability to deliberately question what already exists. That’s how we create new tools and come up with ideas. Children don’t learn about the world by following rules—they learn by breaking them. The fact that one generation challenges the one before is exactly why we’re no longer sitting in Stone Age caves, but out exploring the world with curiosity.”

Beck puts it sharply:

“Would an AI company ever build a product that actively disagrees, sets its own goals, or breaks established rules? I think that would be a terrible product. I definitely wouldn’t buy it.”

Tech speeds up our thinking—so how do we use the time it saves?

Historically, we’ve used new tools to think more, not less.

“People have never adopted new technology to think less—but to think more.”

Skills like saddling horses or doing calculations with logarithm tables have faded away—and that’s a good thing.

“The time I gain isn’t for lying around in a hammock—it's for finding more problems and then solving them.”

That’s where the real opportunity with AI lies:

"Use tools for broad idea generation, and let humans handle problem discovery and strategic rule-breaking."

Dr. Henning Beck will deliver a keynote on October 20 as part of the Digital Leadership Nürnberg event, held at the Museum für Kommunikation. His talk is titled: “AI vs. the Brain – Thinking Better in a Digital World.”
Want to join? Get your tickets HERE.

Dr. Henning Beck is a neuroscientist and author. He studied biochemistry in Tübingen and earned his PhD in 2012 from the Graduate School of Neuroscience there. Afterward, he worked at the University of California, Berkeley, where he developed modern innovation strategies for companies in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Today, he is a regular columnist for WirtschaftsWoche, hosts a video series for web.de, and appears weekly as an interview guest on Deutschlandfunk. His popular science books have been translated into seven languages and offer an accessible introduction to the world of brain research.

In his latest book, Besser denken (Better Thinking), he explores the thinking skills that will become especially important in the future—and how to future-proof your mind.

Photo credit: Hans Scherhaufer