Is AI making us dumb?
TechCrunchFEB 8
In a new study of 319 people providing 936 examples of generative artificial intelligence (AI) use in their workplace tasks, researchers from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University found a correlation between AI dependence and decreased critical thinking.
The study discovered that workers who expressed high confidence in AI's capabilities demonstrated "less critical thinking effort," while those with "self-confidence," or who were less confident in AI, applied more rigorous critical thinking and evaluation.
When using generative AI tools, workers produced a "less diverse set of outcomes" for identical tasks compared to those working without AI assistance, suggesting a reduction in personal judgment and creative thinking.
This study proves what many have intuitively predicted. As AI software becomes more advanced, and it's continuously promoted as a tool to make life more efficient, humans will eventually turn off their brains by choice. Similar to the movie WALL-E, humanity is headed toward a world where people can essentially no longer read, write, speak, or think for themselves.
While AI may seem like an exponentially different kind of technological advancement, humans will likely deal with it the same way they did in the past. Previous breakthrough inventions, most notably the Google search engine, were met with the same warnings, but in the end, Google Search didn't make people dumber. The same will come of AI, especially as society learns to master it like it did every other invention.