GenAI can inhibit critical engagement with work and can potentially lead to long-term overreliance on the tool and diminished skill for independent problem-solving.

Analysing 936 real-world GenAI tool use examples our participants shared, we find that knowledge workers engage in critical thinking primarily to ensure the quality of their work, e.g. by verifying outputs against external sources. Moreover, while GenAI can improve worker efficiency, it can inhibit critical engagement with work and can potentially lead to long-term overreliance on the tool and diminished skill for independent problem-solving. Higher confidence in GenAI’s ability to perform a task is related to less critical thinking effort. When using GenAI tools, the effort invested in critical thinking shifts from information gathering to information verification; from problem-solving to AI response integration; and from task execution to task stewardship. Knowledge workers face new challenges in critical thinking as they incorporate GenAI into their knowledge workflows. To that end, our work suggests that GenAI tools need to be designed to support knowledge workers’ critical thinking by addressing their awareness, motivation, and ability barriers.

  • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
    154·
    2 days ago

    I wonder if there were articles like this when the pocket calculator came out.

    • yogsototh@programming.devEnglish
      20·
      2 days ago

      If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.

      Plato against writing

    • lunarul@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 day ago

      There are studies about how other tools reduced various capacities. Our memory capacity has decreased and how we use it has changed. People used to store a lot of information, now we only store a sort of index (we remember where to look it up, not the information itself). Our attention span has also greatly decreased with the shift to short form content (not a useful tool, but just another cognitive change).

      • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        1 day ago

        It did! But we also ended up being more efficient per grey-matter mass.

        FTA

        This reduction in brain size however does not mean that modern humans are less intelligent. Human brains have evolved to work more efficiently and utilize less energy.

    • amino@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      42·
      2 days ago

      except calculators function as a disability aid if you have discalculia and actually foster your math skills instead of hallucinating a wrong result for your input