If writing is thinking then what happens if AI is doing the writing and reading?

Just watched Veritasium's "How One Company Secretly Poisoned The Planet"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC2eSujzrUY

Inventions created for convenience decades ago have now become health concerns. I wonder how AI might affect our intellectual well-being in the decades to come.

It's already affecting students knowledge. Why bother with understanding something if you can ask chatgpt to do the work?