AI Guardrails to Keep Your Brain in the Game
Richard Lalchan came back on the show, and we went somewhere I've been wanting to go for a while. Not just what AI is doing to our workflows, but what it might be doing to our minds.
Richard is a digital wellbeing and clarity coach who works at the intersection of ancient wisdom and modern technology. He helps parents and leaders reclaim their attention from systems designed to capture it. And in this conversation, he brought something I wasn't expecting: a practical, grounded framework of AI guardrails that anyone can actually use.
Why Critical Thinking Is Already Under Pressure
Before we even got to AI, Richard walked me through something that reframed the whole conversation. Daniel Kahneman's system one and system two thinking. System one is fast, emotional, reactive. System two is slow, deliberate, considered. The problem is that most of our technology, social media, apps, now AI, is designed to keep us in system one. That dopamine loop. The instant response. The streak. The notification. We're being, as Richard put it, programmed out of critical thinking, not by accident, but by design.
What the Research Is Starting to Show
Richard referenced the MIT study, Your Brain on ChatGPT, which followed participants writing essays over four months. The group using ChatGPT showed significantly reduced cognitive engagement compared to the other groups. And 83% of those users couldn't quote a single sentence from what they'd written. It's a limited study, Richard was clear about that, but the signal is worth taking seriously. The phrase that stuck with me: we're borrowing intelligence from the future. If we choose the speed of AI today, we may be accumulating a cognitive debt we'll eventually have to pay back.
Nine AI Guardrails Worth Building Into Your Practice
This is where Richard really delivered. Nine practical AI guardrails, not as rules to follow out of fear, but as habits to protect your thinking over time. Don't anthropomorphise your tech. Embrace the first draft as entirely your own. Engage your system two brakes before hitting submit. Apply the ownership test: can you actually explain and defend what you've just produced? Protect developing minds, particularly under 25. Prioritise an active brain, walks without headphones, problems to mull over. Verify the truth, AI hallucinates and most young people in one study trusted it completely. Align your use with your values, not just convenience. And finally, run a renewal of the mind audit. Take a week off AI. See how it feels.
What This Conversation Left Me Thinking About
The guardrails Richard shared aren't really about AI at all. They're about intentionality. About the difference between using a tool and being used by one. Whether it's sugar, Snapchat streaks, or ChatGPT, the question is always the same: is this serving where I want to go, or am I just reaching for it out of habit?
Richard's website is https://renewyourmind.net, where the full guardrails list will be available. He also mentioned Dominion AI at https://dominion.chat as an alternative worth exploring, particularly for those who'd value a perspective grounded in faith alongside the practical outputs.
The brain is a muscle. Use it or lose it isn't just a cliché. It's what the data is starting to say.