Understanding cannot be outsourced to AI because it requires active study.

Evidence

But the only way to be a person who understands anything is to be a person who actually STUDIES things. There is no way to outsource understanding. And there is no other path to freedom. Without understanding, one is, simply, trapped. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 302

Categorization

• DEFINE: Pins down what the book means by ‘study’ — not information acquisition but the active cognitive labor that constitutes understanding and freedom.
• XREF: Opposes the ‘just-in-time knowledge’ / outsourced-cognition framing in AI boosterism; resonates with earlier soundscape chapters treating deep listening as active labor vs passive reception.
• SEED: Angle: ‘You cannot delegate the workout’ — an essay on why outsourcing cognition to tools never yields the understanding the user retains, using the gym/learning analogy.