The Devil is in the Details

Our reliance on AI tools is costing us critical thinking and observational skills

My son recently asked me how much students should rely on AI in school. He has been using AI for some personal projects he’s working on, but his teachers were telling the class they shouldn’t be using AI for their schoolwork.

It kicked off a great conversation about what AI, specifically LLMs, is good for and how to be cautious about its use.

I agree with his teachers about not using AI to do schoolwork. Aside from being painfully obvious when a kid tries to pass off AI as original work, it is also a tool to be used cautiously when learning.

Currently, my son is learning important critical-thinking skills. He hasn’t fully developed the ability to interpret what he reads or put together well-reasoned arguments or summaries. These are skills that take practice, and he’s early in his journey. Which is why it’s so important to exercise the cognitive muscles of critical thinking and observation.

Critical Thinking Decline

Critical thinking and observation are skills that take practice to develop and require exercise to maintain.

For students, offloading this work to AI is appealing because it requires significantly less effort with seemingly acceptable results. Why summarize a book or passage when AI can do it? Why analyze an author’s intent when someone can just tell you what it is?

But the more we rely on AI tools like ChatGPT to do the work, the less we’re able to do it ourselves.

A study by Michael Gerlich found that an increased reliance on AI tools correlates with decreased critical thinking.

Statistical analyses demonstrated a significant negative correlation between AI tool usage and critical thinking scores (r = -0.68, p < 0.001). Frequent AI users exhibited diminished ability to critically evaluate information and engage in reflective problem-solving.

As individuals, especially students and younger people, use AI, they offload the cognitive work and decrease their ability to critically analyze problems.