Brief AI use may harm problem-solving skills and cognitive abilities, new study reveals

Using AI for Just 10 Minutes Might Make You Lazy and Dumb, Study Shows

Using AI chatbots for even just for 10 minutes may have a shockingly negative impact on people's ability to think and problem-solve, according to a new study from researchers at Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Oxford, and UCLA. Researchers tasked people with solving various problems, including simple fractions and reading comprehension, through an online platform that paid them for their work. They conducted three experiments, each involving several hundred people. Some participants were given access to an AI assistant capable of solving the problem autonomously. When the AI helper was suddenly taken away, these people were significantly more likely to give up on the problem or flub their answers. The study suggests that widespread use of AI might boost productivity at the expense of developing foundational problem-solving skills. "The takeaway is not that we should ban AI in education or workplaces," says Michiel Bakker, an assistant professor at MIT involved with the study. "AI can clearly help people perform better in the moment, and that can be valuable. But we should be more careful about what kind of help AI provides, and when." I recently met up with Bakker, who has chaotic hair and a wide grin, on MIT's campus. Originally from the Netherlands, he previously worked at Google DeepMind in London. He told me that a well-known essay on the way AI may disempower humans over time inspired him to think about how the technology could already be eroding people's abilities. The essay makes for slightly bleak reading, because it suggests that disempowerment is inevitable. That said, perhaps figuring out how AI can help people develop their own mental capabilities should be part of how models are aligned with human values. "It is fundamentally a cognitive question -- about persistence, learning, and how people respond to difficulty," Bakker tells me. "We wanted to take these broader concerns about long-term human-AI interaction and study them in a controlled experimental setting." The resulting study seems particularly concerning, says Bakker, because a person's willingness to persist with problem-solving is crucial to acquiring new skills and also predicts their capacity to learn over time. Bakker says it may be necessary to rethink how AI tools work so that -- like a good human teacher -- models sometimes prioritize a person's learning over solving a problem for them. "Systems that give direct answers may have very different long-term effects from systems that scaffold, coach, or challenge the user," Bakker says. He admits, however, that balancing this kind of "paternalistic" approach could be tricky. AI companies do already think about the more subtle effects that their models can have on users. The sycophancy of some models -- or how likely they are to agree with and patronize users -- is something that OpenAI has sought to tone down with newer releases of GPT. Putting too much faith in AI would seem especially problematic when the tools may not behave as you expect. Agentic AI systems are particularly unpredictable because they do complex chores independently and can introduce odd errors. It makes you wonder what Claude Code and Codex are doing to the skills of coders who may sometimes need to fix the bugs they introduce. I recently got a lesson in the danger of offloading critical thinking to AI myself. I've been using OpenClaw (with Codex inside) as a daily helper, and I've found it to be remarkably good at solving configuration issues on Linux. Recently, however, after my Wi-Fi connection kept dropping, my AI assistant suggested running a series of commands in order to tweak the driver talking to the Wi-Fi card. The result was a machine that refused to boot no matter what I did. Perhaps, instead of simply trying to solve the problem for me, OpenClaw should have paused to teach me how to fix the issue for myself. I might have a more capable computer -- and brain -- as a result.

Even brief AI use could hurt your ability to think, a new study finds

AI gives you answers fast, but a new study suggests it might be costing you something more valuable. A new study from researchers at Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Oxford, and UCLA suggests that using an AI chatbot for just 10 minutes could negatively impact your ability to think and problem-solve. And honestly, the findings are a little alarming. As reported by Wired, the researchers asked participants to solve problems, including simple fractions and reading comprehension tasks. Some participants were given access to an AI assistant that could solve the problem for them. Recommended Videos When the AI was suddenly removed, those participants were far more likely to give up or get the answer wrong. In other words, the moment the AI crutch was gone, people struggled. Should we be worried about what AI is doing to our brains? Michiel Bakker, an assistant professor at MIT who worked on the study, is careful not to sound like a doomsayer. "The takeaway is not that we should ban AI in education or workplaces," he says. "AI can clearly help people perform better in the moment, and that can be valuable. But we should be more careful about what kind of help AI provides, and when." What makes this particularly concerning is that persistence, which is your willingness to keep trying when things get hard, is a key part of how humans learn and develop new skills over time. AI, it seems, is quietly chipping away at that. So what's the fix? Bakker believes AI tools need to be redesigned to work like a good teacher. Instead of just handing the answer, they should coach users through the problem. "Systems that give direct answers may have very different long-term effects from systems that scaffold, coach, or challenge the user," he says. It's a tricky balance, and AI companies are already grappling with related issues. For now, it might be worth asking yourself: is your AI assistant helping you grow, or just doing your thinking for you?

Even short AI use can change thinking patterns, reduce problem-solving ability: Study

Researchers said AI should help people learn, not replace independent thinking. AI chatbots are now a big part of daily life for many people around the world. Children use them to help with homework, and adults use them to do difficult tasks more easily. Recently, a scientific study found that artificial intelligence might quietly affect how people think and make decisions. Researchers from top universities like Oxford University and UCLA discovered that even using AI for just 15 minutes can change how a person's brain works a little. While AI helps people finish tasks faster and more correctly, it may also make them less patient over time. There was a recent study done where over 1,000 people took part in three different tests, including maths and reading skills. In the test one of the groups was allowed to use AI for solving the test problems, while the other group was not allowed to use the AI. Also read: Qualcomm launches Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 and Snapdragon 4 Gen 5 in India: Faster gaming, better AI and more At first the group who were using AI were doing better as they finished faster and made fewer mistakes in the early tasks. This clearly showed that the AI can improve speed and accuracy in the short term. The situation changed when the researchers took the AI away. Once participants had to work without digital help, their performance dropped significantly. In the maths section, people who had previously used AI scored only 57 per cent. In contrast, those who never used the tool scored 73 per cent. A similar gap appeared in reading comprehension. The group that relied on AI scored 76 per cent, while the independent thinkers reached 89 per cent. The researchers also noticed that AI users were much more likely to give up on difficult questions or skip them entirely. Also read: OnePlus 16 tipped to launch with 200MP camera and big battery: Check launch timeline and more However, there is a solution to avoid cognitive impairment while using those technologies. According to the experiment, when AI offered explanations instead of providing answers directly, participants did not show any signs of impaired skills. That means that AI serves the most efficiently as a tool of education, not a substitute for working hard. It should be mentioned that scholars strongly advise considering AI as an aid and nothing more. In order to develop your brain and stay cognitively fit, you should exercise in dealing with complicated problems without outside help. Assistance from AI can only be a useful complement to your actions.