A recent report claims that delegating certain tasks to artificial intelligence reduces brain activity and damages critical‑thinking and problem‑solving skills.
MIT’s study found that participants who used the ChatGPT chatbot to write essays showed lower activity in brain networks linked to cognitive processing and struggled to cite their work.
"It is important to explore the possibility of declining learning skills," the researchers said.
Another study by Carnegie Mellon and Microsoft’s Copilot program revealed that excessive reliance on AI weakens problem‑solving abilities. They surveyed 319 white‑collar workers and analyzed 900 AI‑assigned tasks, noting that higher confidence in the tool correlated with lower critical thinking.
"We do not think students should fully rely on ChatGPT for academic tasks," says Jenna Devani, head of international education at OpenAI.
Overall, the researchers warn that long‑term AI dependence could erode independent problem‑solving skills.
