- Only 3% of participants with access to AI were willing to say “I don’t know”
- Participants did not sufficiently question the information generated by AI
- “The AI… eliminated the participants’ willingness to suspend the trial”
A new study by researchers from French and Italian universities argues that humans are struggling to compete with artificial intelligence when it comes to critical thinking.
According to the data, participants with access to AI were less likely to say “I don’t know,” and only 3% were unsure of an answer that required critical thinking compared to 44% of participants who did not have access to AI.
Ultimately, the study concludes that humans rely too much on artificial intelligence to replace potentially correct personal judgments with incorrect AI suggestions.
Is AI harming our critical thinking?
The study deliberately used a model that has a lower accuracy rate to produce incorrect results, and yet humans still chose to use those results instead of thinking for themselves, offering a more correct answer, or simply saying “I don’t know.”
But despite this reliance on AI, the human participants still seemed to recognize that the AI could be wrong. To be more honest, with small financial incentives, more participants were less likely to follow AI’s exact word.
“In five experiments, mere access to AI advice nearly eliminated participants’ willingness to suspend judgment,” they wrote.
“As AI-generated responses become ubiquitous and increasingly unsolicited, our results show that the willingness to say ‘I don’t know’ may be among the first casualties of human-AI interaction.”
The article also reveals a related paradox whereby humans are more likely to feel confident in their responses with access to external information, whether generated by AI, even if it is not correct or not entirely relevant to their thought process.
Despite acknowledging many limitations and the small scope of this study, the researchers still call for greater AI literacy and education when it comes to verifying the results and reinforcing the importance of human critical thinking.
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