- Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University has published research which indicates that AI causes “deterioration of cognitive faculties”
- The study involved 319 people who use AI tools at work at least once a week
- The study based on the survey opens the door to deeper research on the side effects of AI
Brain rot is generally associated with an endlessly unhappiness of low -quality online content, but a new Microsoft research study suggests that the overuse of AI could cause “the deterioration of cognitive faculties”. Oh no.
Played in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, the study – entitled The impact of the AI generating critical thinking: self -depressed reduction in cognitive effort and the effects of confidence in a survey of knowledge workers – asked 319 participants who use “Genai tools at work at least once a week” (like Gemini, Chatgpt, Copilot) to judge the way the use of AI at work affected their critical thinking skills .
He noted that “although the Genai can improve the efficiency of workers, it can inhibit critical engagement with work and can potentially lead to long -term surpassing on the tool and a reduction in skills for independent resolution problems. ” The study added that people’s jobs become less problem solving and ensuring that AI has properly solved the problem – transform our work of “the execution of tasks to the steward of tasks” – this Who led people to feel their ability to think in a critical way as well as before starting to use AI.
Is it time to panic? Not yet
See the titles and read the study, it may seem that it is time to pull the great lever from AI and close everything to save our brain from being irreparably damaged by a tool that can hurt us More than that helps us. But although the study certainly highlights the challenges, we must desperately tackle in the space of AI – ultimately the relationship between humans and AI that we should cultivate – it is not as disastrous as it seems.
This is because the study focuses on how users of AI perceive The use of AI affects their critical thinking. Although the study uses an investigation to quantify these feelings, it comes back to the way people feel And, more importantly, this does not create a real quantitative comparison between frequent AI users and people who never or rarely use AI.
While people who use AI a lot can feel less capable of thinking critical, it could be that because they are not as distracted by less difficult tasks, they can more easily solve those who are difficult thanks to The help of the AI - or there could be that there was no change in their critical thinking skills. But to measure real changes in critical thinking, we would need a study with quantitative tests that compare the capacity of different groups (groups decided according to their use of AI) to perform tasks – including a control that never uses AI for work.
Until we have this kind of study, it is impossible to judge if AI really makes us stupid. However, this does not mean that we should simply reject this Microsoft research.
First, using this study as inspiration for a more quantitative study like the one I described would be a fantastic next step. Second, although the feelings of the participants can represent or not the factual reality, they represent the reality for the people of this study – and they should not be rejected.
If people have the impression of being just AI guards rather than doing a significant work that could lead to dissatisfaction in their work. Some psychologists believe that the dissatisfaction of how we spend our time scrolling is the deep cause of experience in the rot of social media (via BBC). A similar feeling of sense of meaning could cause similar feelings of brain deterioration of AI users at work.
The AI becoming more widespread, we will have to determine the best way to combat feelings of deterioration, but a good first step will always be personal care. Be that finding a new job that stimulates us, taking a hobby that we can devote our brain power to, or another strategy that suits you best.
