Microsoft Study Finds Relying on AI Kills Your Critical Thinking Skills

[vitorobles@lemmy.today]

That sounds right. Lemme ask Gemini and DeepSink just in case.

[lexam@lemmy.world]

Gemini told me critical thinking wasn't important. So I guess that's ok.

[thomascrappersghost@feddit.uk]

No shit.

[eheran@lemmy.world]

I love how you mix in the Idiocracy quotes

[werefreeatlast@lemmy.world]

Keep it on its toes... Ask chatgpt, then copy paste the answer and ask perplexity why that's wrong and go back and forth...human, AI, Human, AI...until you get a satisfactory answer.

[werefreeatlast@lemmy.world]

That's the same company that approved Clippie and the magic wizard.

[cosmonova@lemmy.world]

I‘m surprised they even published this finding given how hard they‘re pushing AI.

[sam_bass@lemmy.world]

Oddly enough that's exactly what corporate wants. Mindless drones to do their bidding unquestioned

[singletona@lemmy.world]

I hate how it just seems to slide in.

[outlierblue@lemmy.ca]

That's because they're bragging, not warning.

[superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

Of course. Relying on a lighter kills your ability to start a fire without one. Its nothing new.

[lobut@lemmy.ca]

Remember the:

Personal computers were “bicycles for the mind.”

I guess with AI and social media it's more like melting your mind or something. I can't find another analogy. Like a baseball bat to your leg for the mind doesn't roll off the tongue.

I know Primeagen has turned off copilot because he said the "copilot pause" daunting and affects how he codes.

[jdeath@lemm.ee]

i like to say "are you sure you even understand this? do you know what you’re doing or do i need to spell it out for you?!"

[whostosay@lemmy.world]

Bullet point 3 was my single issue vote

[snapz@lemmy.world]

A savvy consumer, glad you mentioned. Felt better than hitting it on the nose.

[ch00f@lemmy.world]

Calculators also don’t think critically.

[artificialfish@programming.dev]

Damn. I wonder where all the calculus identities and mathematical puzzle solving abilities in my head disappeared to then. Surely not into the void that is Wolfram Mathematica. Surely not...

[osrsneedsf2p@lemmy.ml]

Really? I just asked ChatGPT and this is what it had to say:

This claim is misleading because AI can enhance critical thinking by providing diverse perspectives, data analysis, and automating routine tasks, allowing users to focus on higher-order reasoning. Critical thinking depends on how AI is used—passively accepting outputs may weaken it, but actively questioning, interpreting, and applying AI-generated insights can strengthen cognitive skills.

[pacattack57@lemmy.world]

Based on what? Did they get 1000 people 10 years ago, test their critical thinking skills then retest after heavy AI use? How many people were in the control?

[pacattack57@lemmy.world]

Pretty shit “study”. If workers use AI for a task, obviously the results will be less diverse. That doesn’t mean their critical thinking skills deteriorated. It means they used a tool that produces a certain outcome. This doesn’t test their critical thinking at all.

“Another noteworthy finding of the study: users who had access to generative AI tools tended to produce “a less diverse set of outcomes for the same task” compared to those without. That passes the sniff test. If you’re using an AI tool to complete a task, you’re going to be limited to what that tool can generate based on its training data. These tools aren’t infinite idea machines, they can only work with what they have, so it checks out that their outputs would be more homogenous. Researchers wrote that this lack of diverse outcomes could be interpreted as a “deterioration of critical thinking” for workers.”