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Will AI make me dumber? Two recent studies suggest it might. An MIT Media Lab experiment, not yet peer-reviewed, found lower brain connectivity among people writing essays with ChatGPT than among those writing unaided. A Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon survey of 319 knowledge workers found that greater confidence in AI for a given task was associated with less self-reported critical thinking.
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Both findings deserve attention. But neither establishes that AI causes a lasting decline in intelligence. Thinking less while the machine works is not the same as becoming less able to think.
Consider a cart. Use one to carry heavy bags and your muscles do not weaken that afternoon. The load has simply moved. Stop lifting anything for years, though, and strength will fade. That is the honest risk.
The MIT study hints at it: participants who switched from ChatGPT to working unaided stayed less engaged. But the sample was small and the period short. Disuse is a real danger. It is not proof that the cart makes you weak.
The purpose of the task matters. When the purpose is learning, as with a student’s essay, delegating the thinking may defeat it. When the purpose is delivering a result, reducing effort can be entirely sensible. The challenge is knowing which kind of work is being done. Now picture two professionals using the same AI on the same analysis. The first accepts the result and moves on. The second uses it to carry a heavier load than before: testing more alternatives, challenging the assumptions and taking on analysis they could not have managed alone.
The first has saved effort. The second has reinvested it in becoming capable of more.
So, will AI make me dumber? Not by itself. The bigger danger is mistaking what the machine produced for what we have become. The cart carries the load. It does not decide where we walk.
Frank Ng is a retired NASDAQ CEO, who co-authors this column with his son Ryan after publishing their book Hey AI, Let’s Talk!