Researchers from Microsoft University and Carnegie Mellon They recently published a study about how using generative AI at work impacts critical thinking skills.
"When used incorrectly, technologies can result in the deterioration of cognitive faculties that should be preserved," the document says.
When people rely on generative AI at work, their effort shifts to verifying that an AI’s response is good enough to use, rather than using higher-order critical thinking skills like creating, evaluating and analyzing information. If humans only step in when AI responses fall short, the paper says, workers are deprived of “routine opportunities to practice their judgment and strengthen their cognitive musculature, leaving them atrophied and unprepared when exceptions arise.”
In other words, when we rely too much on AI to think for us, we become worse at solving problems ourselves when AI fails.
In this study of 319 people, who reported using generative AI at least once a week at work, respondents were asked to share three examples of how they use generative AI at work, which fall into three main categories: creating (writing a formulaic email to a colleague, for example); informing (researching a topic or summarizing a long article); and advising (asking for guidance or making a table of existing data). They were then asked whether they practice critical thinking skills when doing the task, and whether using generative AI causes them to use more or less effort to think critically. For each task respondents mentioned, they were also asked to share how confident they were in themselves, in generative AI, and in their ability to evaluate AI outputs.
About 36% of participants reported that they used critical thinking skills to mitigate potential negative outcomes of using AI. One participant said she used ChatGPT to write a performance review but double-checked the AI output for fear that she might accidentally submit something that would get her suspended. Another respondent reported having to edit AI-generated emails that she would send to her boss, whose culture puts more emphasis on hierarchy and age, so that she wouldn’t make a faux pas. And in many cases, participants cross-checked AI-generated responses with more general web searches of resources like YouTube and Wikipedia, arguably defeating the purpose of using AI in the first place.
For workers to compensate for the shortcomings of generative AI, they need to understand how those shortcomings occur. But not all participants were familiar with the limits of AI.
“Potential downstream harms from GenAI responses can motivate critical thinking, but only if the user is aware of such harms,” the paper says.
In fact, the study found that participants who reported confidence in AI used less critical thinking effort than those who reported confidence in their own abilities.
While researchers are wary of saying that generative AI tools make us less thoughtful, the study shows that over-reliance on generative AI tools can weaken our ability for independent problem-solving.
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