This could leave us in a \u201cboiling frog\u201d scenario, in which the capabilities of our brains are progressively compromised as we lean on AI more heavily.<\/p>\n
A team of researchers from the University of Oxford, MIT, UCLA and Carnegie Mellon said their research provides evidence for two consequences of using AI to help complete tasks \u2013 reduced persistence and impairment of unassisted performance.<\/p>\n
The researchers asked people to carry out a variety of different tasks, including mathematical reasoning and reading comprehension.<\/p>\n
They found that \u201cafter just 10 minutes of AI-assisted problem-solving, people who lost access to AI performed worse and gave up more frequently\u201d.<\/p>\n
Describing the gains seen from using AI as coming \u201cat a heavy cognitive cost\u201d, the team warned that their findings \u201craise urgent questions about the cumulative effects of daily AI use on human persistence and reasoning\u201d.<\/p>\n
They said: \u201cThese findings are particularly concerning because persistence is foundational to skill acquisition.<\/p>\n
If AI routinely removes that struggle, people may develop less robust independent capability<\/p>\n
\u201cWe caution that if such effects acc\u00adumulate with sustained AI use, current AI systems \u2013 optimised only for short-term helpfulness \u2013 risk eroding the very human capabilities they are meant to support.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the effects may seem small in relation to society now, the team suggested a cumulative effect over years could lead to serious implications, undermining our ability to concentrate and learn.<\/p>\n
If AI erodes the motivation and persistence required to drive long-term learning, the effects \u201cwill accumulate over years, and by the time they are visible they will be difficult to reverse\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is analogous to the \u2018boiling frog\u2019 effect, where each incremental act feels costless, until the cumulative effect becomes overwhelming to address,\u201d the team said.<\/p>\n
Research co-author Grace Liu, from Carnegie Mellon University\u2019s Machine Learning Department, said the study indicates that much more research about human interaction with AI is needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe concern is about what cognitive scientists call \u2018desirable difficulties\u2019 \u2013 the productive struggle that builds skill over time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf AI routinely removes that strugg\u00adle, people may get the right answer in the moment, but develop less robust independent capability.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This could leave us in a \u201cboiling frog\u201d scenario, in which the capabilities of our brains are progressively…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,2334,219,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-405060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}