- Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University published an investigation that says that AI is causing “the deterioration of cognitive faculties”
- The study involved 319 people who use AI tools at work at least once a week
- The survey -based study opens the door to a deeper investigation on the side effects of AI
The brain rot is generally associated with the infinite displacement of the fatality of low quality content, but a new Microsoft research study suggests that excessive use of AI could be causing “the deterioration of cognitive faculties.” Oh no.
Made in collaboration with the Carnegie Mellon University, the study entitled The impact of the generative AI in critical thinking: self -informed reductions on the cognitive effort and confidence effects of a survey of knowledge workers – They asked 319 participants who use “Genai tools at work at least once a week” (such as Gemini, Chatgpt, Copilot) who judge how the use of AI at work was affecting their critical thinking skills.
He found that “although Genai can improve the efficiency of workers, it can inhibit critical commitment to work and can potentially lead to excessive long -term dependence in the tool and a decreased ability for the independent problem resolution.” The study added that people’s works are becoming less about solving problems and more of ensuring that AI has correctly solved the problem, transforming our work from the “execution of tasks to the administration of tasks”, which led People to feel that their ability to think critically is not as acute as before starting to use AI.
Is it time to panic? Not yet
Seeing the headlines and reading the study, it may seem that it is time to pull the AI lever and close everything forever to prevent our brains from being irreparably damaged by a tool that can be hurt more than it is helping us. But while the study certainly highlights the challenges that we desperately need to address in the space of, ultimately, the relationship between humans and the AI that we should be cultivating, is not as serious as it seems.
That is because the study focuses on how users of AI perceive The use of AI is affecting your critical thinking. While the study uses a survey to quantify these feelings, it’s about how people feel And, what is more important, does not create a true quantitative comparison between frequent users and people who never or rarely use AI.
While people who use a lot can feel that they are less able to think critical, it could not There is change in your critical thinking skills. But to measure real changes in critical thinking, we would need a study with quantitative evidence that compares the capacity of different groups (determined groups based on their use) to complete the tasks, including a control that IA never uses for work .
Until we have that kind of study, it is impossible to judge if AI is really making us more silly. However, that does not mean that we should rule out this Microsoft research.
First, using this study as an inspiration for a more quantitative study such as the one I have described would be a next fantastic step. Secondly, although the feelings of the participants may or may not represent objective reality, they represent reality for people in this study, and should not be discarded.
If people feel they are simply AI administrators instead of doing significant work that could lead to dissatisfaction in their work. Some psychologists believe that dissatisfaction with the way we spend our time displacing is the root cause of the experience of brain rot of social networks (through the BBC). A similar sense of lack of meaning could be to cause feelings of deterioration of the brain of AI users at work.
With the increasingly frequent AI, we will have to solve the best way to fight against feelings of deterioration, but a good first step will always be a bit of self -care. Whether to find a new job that stimulates us, assuming a hobby in which we can dedicate our brain power to the brain to the or another strategy that works better for you.
