Study Finds That People Who Entrust Tasks to AI Are Losing Critical Thinking Skills
https://futurism.com/study-ai-critical-thinking
Study Finds That People Who Entrust Tasks to AI Are Losing Critical Thinking Skills
https://futurism.com/study-ai-critical-thinking
24 Comments
AI has not even been available for a long enough time that this is a remotely viable study to have done.
Here is all you need to know about the study. In other words, it’s meaningless.
“The research team surveyed 319 “knowledge workers” — basically, folks who solve problems for work, though [definitions vary](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/knowledge-worker) — about their experiences using generative AI products in the workplace.
From social workers to people who write code for a living, the professionals surveyed were all asked to share three real-life examples of when they used AI tools at work and how much critical thinking they did when executing those tasks. In total, more than 900 examples of AI use at work were shared with the researchers.”
The article doesn’t actually cite the study either, and it even makes reference to the old fear that calculator use would make people reliant on them.
I’m not surprised, I was looking at a business BI solution for a firm last week and they were asking me to look at the AI part of it as they wanted to start using AI.
When I looked at the AI component it required standard AI style prompts to analyse the data…they loved it and thought it would save them so much time.
Until I pointed out to them what the AI was doing was things you could easily do in a step or two in powerbi which they were already using.
It would take them longer to generate an accurate prompt and verify it was actually giving them what they wanted than creating two steps in powerBI….where this analysis was actually already setup and working.
I mean, if a “study” said it, it must be the truth.
Pues no sé que decir,
[-Chatgpt, ¿es cierta esta noticia: “Estudio revela que las personas que delegan….”?; tú qué opinas de esto?]
“Chatgpt, tell me what this article is about, keep it short in less than 20 words.”.
It’s like learning any new skill or subject, the brain is a muscle. We create new pathways in our brains through repetition and practice.
If we rely on a computer to think for us, what will we really be doing to ourselves in the end? Perhaps this will make those of us who do not rely on AI, have a competitive advantage in the future workplace. Those with real critical thinking skills to the top? I wish it were so.
Losing ? People with critical thinking skills don’t use AI
And people who use “contacts” on their phone don’t need to remember numbers anymore. People who use the calendar function don’t need to remember important dates anymore. People using an abacus instead of their fingers and toes are losing crucial math skills. Come on…
It’s going to be harder and harder to be a human because everything is getting easier
To reiterate the top comment, people trusting AI with anything at all likely already had a lack of critical thinking skills and valid judgement. I’ve seen VP’s completely reliant on ChatGPT sending out 20 page reports that were complete gibberish.
I have two primary uses for AI – walking through proof of concepts at a very high level, and troubleshooting code. A third use is basically advanced auto complete. I write a function then it starts to suggest the next function and 2/3 times it’s pretty close, but you still have to pay attention.
A person who entrusts tasks to AI never had critical thinking skills in the first place lol
I had a project manager who was clearly using ChatGPT to outsource his brain. He clearly didn’t read the output, which made him look totally dense in the long run.
Entrust task to AI? I dont think they are loosing any tbh
Society lost critical thinking skills long before the advent of AI
What I’ve learned at my company when I pointed out that we need experienced people with critical thinking skills to check that AI responses are accurate, they don’t really care that it’s not even 90% accurate, let alone 100%. They just want *good enough* in order to save money and cull positions!
Those people never had those skills before using Ai
If you trust shitty “AI” with critical tasks, you never had critical thinking skills.
Any manager who delegates tasks to others is doing the same thing. I assume there are studies about that, too.
All I use it for is pictures of Capybaras doing science.
I used to have a great mental map in my head of the city I love in, prided myself on being to navigate anywhere. 10 years of GPS on a phone and in the car and now I get lost in my backyard. I can absolutely see this happening
Yes but it helped me do my taxes in 20 minutes as opposed to 2 days
I think it depends on how you use it. Do you use it to make everything for you, so you can just watch tv or are you using it to make your steps larger and you get to a bigger scope faster?
The article’s headline is wildly off. It confuses correlation and causation (people who do less critical thinking use more AI? That’s the point!). It’s also a point in time survey on a relatively small sample (just over 300) making broad, sweeping claims about “knowledge workers” as a very broad field.
What we need is a longitudinal study, starting recently, on AI’s effects over time. It will take a long time to bear fruit, though even preliminary findings from that would be more valuable than this survey.
There is a case that AI will cause people to not know how to do things that we can currently do.
So for example, compose a letter, or code, coding can be done by an AI to a reasonable standard, so why learn it, things of that nature.
But that’s inevitable with any technological advance. For example food refrigeration and production have meant that I don’t know, or need to know, how to butcher animals. That’s a skill everybody had, now they don’t. Can say the same for riding a horse or shooting a bow.
Skills will be lost, and the pace of technology feels like it’ll happen quick, but it is what it is.
The flipside of it is that these skills can be nurtured for fun. And they should be preserved, but they don’t have to be ubiquitous.
By the way, regarding critical thinking, people have always been susceptible. Maybe we’d hoped technology would protect people, but it hasn’t before and it won’t now.