Researchers from Microsoft University and Carnegie Mellon recently published a study Examining how the use of AI genetics at work affects critical thinking skills.
“It is used inappropriately. Technologies can and results in the deterioration of the cognitive abilities to be maintained,” the document said.
When people rely on genetic AI at work, their efforts shifts to verification that the answer of an AI is good enough to use, rather than using higher order critical thinking skills such as creation, evaluation and information analysis. If people intervene only when AI’s answers are inadequate, the document says, then employees are deprived of “usual opportunities to exercise their judgment and enhance their cognitive muscular, leaving them moody and unprepared when the exceptions arise”.
In other words, when we rely on AI too much to think about us, we worsen the problem solving when AI fails.
In this study of 319 people, who reported that they use genetics at least once a week at work, respondents were invited to share three examples of how they use AI genetics at work, which fall into three main categories: Creation (writing a standardized email a colleague, for example). Information (researching a topic or summarizing a long article). and tips (asking for guidance or making a graph from existing data). They were then asked if they have critical thinking skills when doing the project and if they use AI genetically makes them use more or less effort to think critically. For every project mentioned by the respondents, they were also asked to share how confident they were on their own, in their genetic AI, and in their ability to evaluate the results of AI.
About 36% of participants reported that they used critical thinking skills to mitigate the potential negative effects of using AI. One participant said he used Chatgpt to write a performance review, but doubled the AI output for fear of being accidentally suspended something that would be suspended. Another respondent said he had to edit the emails that would send the AI he would send to his boss-of which culture places greater emphasis on hierarchy and age-so as not to commit a faux pas. And in many cases, the participants verified the answers created by AI with more general resource web searches such as YouTube and Wikipedia, may defeat the purpose of using AI in the first place.
In order for employees to offset the weaknesses of genetic AI, they must understand how these weaknesses happen. But not all participants were familiar with the AI boundaries.
“Potential downstream damage to Genai answers can motivate critical thinking, but only if the user is consciously aware of such damage,” the paper says.
In fact, the study found that participants who reported confidence in AI used less efforts to critical than those who said they had confidence in their own abilities.
While researchers compensate for saying that AI genetic tools make you hit, the study shows that overloading in AI genetic tools can weaken our ability for independent problem solving.
