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https://theconversation.com/its-tempting-to-offload-your-thinking-to-ai-cognitive-science-shows-why-thats-a-bad-idea-276766>
"With so many artificial intelligence (AI) products on offer now, it’s
increasingly tempting to offload difficult thinking tasks to chatbots, agents
and other tools.
As we chart this new technological terrain, more and more we’re exposed to vast
amounts of information and highly sophisticated software that offers to do the
thinking for us. In just a few seconds, tools such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini
can draft your emails, generate a caring birthday message for a friend, or even
summarise the plot of that novel you haven’t gotten around to reading.
Such increased offloading has raised the fear that people will become overly
reliant on AI. This could have unintended consequences, such as eroding our
critical thinking skills and declining our overall cognitive ability.
This fear is not unfounded. Research from our lab suggests the online
environment exploits our cognitive tendencies – individual differences in how
we think, perceive, pay attention and remember. In turn, some people end up
taking more mental shortcuts and only engaging with information superficially.
Other studies have linked high AI use to increased laziness, anxiety, lower
critical engagement and feelings of dependence.
Yet it may be how we use AI that’s the problem, rather than the fact we do it
at all. Generally, relying on external sources is fine – we do this constantly.
But it’s important to remain in control of what we choose to offload, and why."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
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mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
