AI makes content development and problem-solving more expedient, but at what price to our cognitive ability?

By Dennis Archambault

In the rush to adopt Artificial Intelligence (AI), society may have overlooked a critical risk – the erosion of the ability to think critically. An even greater risk has been associated with children: they may not even develop critical thinking skills, as they learn to rely on AI to think and solve problems for them.

As a writer, I learned that AI could compose and revise content faster and better. While there was pride lost in the manufactured content, the goal, after all, is to prepare the most well-crafted piece of writing that would advance its purpose. That it wasn’t my “voice†was irrelevant. But as I became accustomed to the ease and speed of AI, I began to notice that I was thinking less, moving incomplete thoughts, often in the form of questions, to AI for completion. I realized then that I was at risk of not putting sufficient energy into understanding what it is that needs to be written and the desired outcome of the written piece.

Timothy Cook, an educator, has helped crystallize the dilemma: “The downside of adult offloading is people get less sharp. The downside of adolescents growing up delegating to AI is a generation that was never sharp to begin with. Protecting the space our children need to develop the foundational skills of thinking is now a non-negotiable.â€

Writing in Psychology Today, he referenced a study led by Michael Gerlich, regarding on the negative correlation between AI use and critical thinking in “Why Kids Can’t Resist Cognitive Offloading. Here, for once, the hesitation among older, late adopters seemed to give that segment an advantage. “Participants over age 6 showed higher critical thinking scores alongside lower AI reliance. Participant between 17-25 showed the inverse… In my view, the most likely explanation for this is not generational preference but biological development. The older group probably offloaded tasks they already knew how to perform. The younger group offloaded tasks they never learned how to perform.â€

In a world that is increasingly complex, we can’t afford for our succeeding generations to lack the ability to think. This is a challenge for child health providers, educators, and parents: children must develop in a holistic way – not removed from the advantages of technology, but learning how to use it as any tool, albeit one of the most sophisticated tools we have created in our evolution.

As we look at this dilemma through the perspective of community health providers, we need to retain our critical thinking skills in diagnosis and treatment options. We also need to help our patients to be able to make critical decisions about their health and well-being. Health literacy and related choices are difficult enough when we have the cognitive capacity to evaluate critical considerations.

AI is a tool with a cost attached to it, as well as a computer literacy requirement, raising a question of equity. Will our patients be able to afford the technology or have access to it and know how to use it? And will they have sufficient critical thinking skills to use it as a sophisticated tool, not to replace their mind?

Dennis Archambault is vice president of Public Affairs for Authority Health.