this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2025
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140
The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking: Self-Reported Reductions in Cognitive Effort and Confidence Effects From a Survey of Knowledge Workers (advait.org)
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days 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).