A new book by Richard Cassidy

We're all asking
the wrong question
about AI.

Everyone wants to know what AI can do. But nobody is asking the more important question: what is it doing to us?

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Currently with draft readers. Publication date coming soon.

Psychology of the Machines - book cover
"Machines, as currently constructed, do not have psychology. But they have something more revealing than psychology: they hold a mirror. What you see looking back at you is not the machine's mind. It is yours."
The Book

AI is changing something in the way we think. Most of us can feel it, yet almost nobody is talking about it.

The conversation about AI has been dominated by one question: what can it do? Faster answers, better code, smarter research. The list keeps growing. There is a different question, however, and one that matters far more, yet almost nobody is asking it. Not what AI can do, but what AI is doing. To the way you reason, to the quality of your judgment, and to the cognitive capacities that human beings have spent thousands of years developing (the ones we built civilisations on), as we quietly hand them, one convenient interaction at a time, to the machines.

This book starts there. And the research it draws on makes for uncomfortable reading:

  • People who use AI tools most heavily show measurably reduced activity in the parts of the brain responsible for analytical thinking.
  • Students using AI regularly showed a 23% drop in their unassisted writing ability after just six months (Stanford).
  • 95% of businesses that tried to get real value from AI failed - not because the technology let them down, but because nobody thought about the human side of it.
  • There's a 6x difference in results between people who use AI to sharpen their thinking and those who just use it to get things done faster.

This book isn't about whether AI is good or bad. It's about something more personal than that - what happens to your thinking when you hand it over, a little at a time, to something that never gets tired, never doubts itself, and always sounds completely confident.

Psychology of the Machines is the book that puts you back in the driving seat.

Front cover Back cover
Inside the Book

Two ideas that will change how you use AI - starting today.

01

The Seven Tensions

Every time you use AI, something is happening beneath the surface - a quiet tug of war between how you naturally think and what the machine is nudging you towards. There are seven of these tensions, and once you can see them, you can't unsee them.

  • Projection vs. Perception
  • Capability vs. Consciousness
  • Agency vs. Automation
  • Attachment vs. Utility
  • Amplification vs. Dependency
  • Responsibility vs. Delegation
  • Identity vs. Extension
02

The DARE Protocol

A simple four-step habit you can build into how you use AI - any AI, any task, any day. Not a complicated system. Just four questions that keep you in charge of your own thinking.

  • D - Declare what you already know before you ask
  • A - Alternatives: ask for a different answer, not just the first one
  • R - Resist the pull of a confident-sounding reply; check it
  • E - Evaluate: would you stand behind this if it were entirely yours?
Who Is It For

If you use AI - this book is for you.

💼

At Work

Whether you're a manager, a nurse, a lawyer or a developer - if AI is part of how you work, it's part of how you think. This book helps you understand what that means.

🎓

Studying

If you're a student - or a teacher watching students - you'll recognise the pattern immediately. Fast answers. Less struggle. And a nagging sense that something is being lost.

👨‍👩‍👧

As a Parent

Your children are growing up with AI as a normal part of thinking. This book helps you understand what that shapes - and what questions are worth asking.

🧠

Just Curious

You don't need a job title to find this interesting. If you've ever used ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or any AI tool and felt something you couldn't quite name - this book names it.

🏢

Running a Team or Business

The quality of your team's thinking is your competitive edge. Understanding what AI does to that thinking - good and bad - might be the most important thing you read this year.

💻

Building with AI

If you're building products or tools that millions of people will use to think with - the psychology of that interaction is something you need to understand.

Reviews

What readers are saying

Currently with draft readers and advance reviewers.
Reviews and endorsements will appear here soon.

About the Author

Richard Cassidy

Paramedic. Technologist. Author.

Richard Cassidy has spent his career in two worlds that don't usually overlap: emergency medicine and information security. For over a decade he has worked as a frontline paramedic with the NHS, responding to real emergencies where decisions have to be made fast, under pressure, with incomplete information.

In parallel, he has worked at senior levels in technology - including as a Chief Information Security Officer - and since 2024 has contributed to AI policy and legislation at the BSA | The Software Alliance consortium.

That combination (the ambulance and the boardroom, the patient and the policy document) is what makes this book different. Richard has seen what bad thinking costs, in the most concrete terms possible. He wrote this book because he could see the same patterns emerging in how people were beginning to think with AI.

"He writes for those who refuse to outsource their judgement."

Richard Cassidy

Want to know when it's out?

The book is with draft readers right now. Leave your email and we'll send you a single message the moment it's available - plus a free excerpt to read straight away.

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