usher

offload

cognitive labor

conscientious

be outsourced

reflective

dull

is not peer-reviewed

A recent MIT Media Lab study reported that “excessive reliance on AI-driven solutions” may contribute” to “cognitive atrophy” and shrinking of critical thinking abilities. The study is small and is not peer-reviewed, and yet it delivers a warning that even artificial intelligence assistants are willing to acknowledge. When we asked ChatGPT whether AI can make us dumber or smarter, it answered, “It depends on how we engage with it: as a crutch or a tool for growth.”

I am less worried about AI as an aid to guide expert-level reasoning in targeted domains, as when, for example, a doctor might use AI in diagnosis to ensure that she hasn’t overlooked an unusual disease. But the problem is that there is too much hype surrounding LLMs as general reasoners upon which we can (at least partially) offload our thinking about any topic whatsoever. It’s in the interest of people producing the technology to make us think that its possibilities are limitless and that it will usher in a wonderful new future for everyone. We should be cautious before we too enthusiastically pin our hopes on the latest technological trend.

AI is forcing us to think differently about the various components of critical thinking. For instance, AI can be a helpful partner in analyzing and inferring, as well as with certain types of problem-solving, but it’s not always that successful at evaluating, and reflecting can’t (yet) be outsourced to AI.

the key to having the owl be a positive force instead of a negative one is not to let it do your thinking for you. We know that generative AI doesn’t understand the human context, so it’s not going to provide wisdom about social, emotional, and contextual events, because those are not part of its repertoire. However, GenAI is very good at absorbing large amounts of data and making calculative predictions in ways that can augment your thinking.

At the end of the day, if you think you’re in school to produce outputs, then you might be OK with AI helping you produce those outputs. But if you’re in school because you want to be learning, remember that the output is just a vehicle through which that learning is going to happen. The output is typically not the ultimate goal. When you confuse those two things, you might use AI in ways that are not conducive to learning.