Longtime So Cal resident Charles Carr is a nationally published journalist and playwright. His award-winning stories and articles have appeared in college textbooks published by Macmillan, St. Martin's Press, Bedford, and others. Charles enjoys writing a regular column for his hometown newspapers, The Times-Advocate and The Roadrunner.

AI is changing the way we think -- and not for the better

If all the promises of artificial intelligence come true, we can all look forward to cures for diseases which have plagued mankind for millennia and ones to come, solutions to vexing mathematical and environmental problems, and the end of the drudgery of daily life. A glorious new dawn for civilization. But, while we're waiting for that future to arrive, we first need to face some troubling questions AI poses right here in the present.

A recent study conducted by Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon reports that AI tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft's own technology, Copilot, are affecting critical thinking with users suffering "long-term reliance and diminished independent problem-solving." Even more troubling, the study revealed that taking away a user's ability to exercise their own innate reasoning ability and judgment left their cognitive function "atrophied and unprepared," far less able to deal anything other than the routine. "Surprisingly, while AI can improve efficiency," the researchers wrote, "it may also reduce critical engagement, particularly in routine or lower-stakes tasks in which users simply rely on AI, raising concerns about long-term reliance and diminished independent problem-solving."

"The study raises concerns about what the rise of the technology means for our brains," notes ITPro.com's Nicole Kobie. "AI tools might be convenient for workers, but there's a risk they'll become too reliant in the future."

In the classroom, teachers appear to be losing a pitched battle with students who are only too happy to let AI do their thinking for them. A recent Pew Research study confirmed the Higher Education Policy Institute's findings that a quarter of 13 to 17-year-olds admitted that they use ChatGPT to write their homework, twice as many as just a year earlier. One shudders to think what next year's numbers will look like.

It's not just the kids. The Microsoft/Carnegie Mellon study revealed that even for the adults tested, “GenAI tools appear to reduce the perceived effort required for critical thinking tasks,” and cautioned that reliance on AI risks leaving our cognitive muscles 'atrophied and unprepared' for when they are needed.

Each of the big players in the AI space insist they are creating tools -- so-called “cognitive forcing functions" -- that will promote critical thinking, but not without challenges. One idea is that AI ask the user follow-up questions along with the provided information, encouraging users to think about what they have just been told. Another would require users to complete a sort of multiple choice quiz before showing the correct answer. The only problem with these solutions -- and why does this come as no surprise -- is that the users who were surveyed have shown they will do everything they can to avoid them, including taking their business to a competitor. It's already like pulling teeth to get social media companies like Facebook and TikTok to change their algorithms so that users aren't glued to their screens 24/7.

“Humans appreciate comfort," Michael Gerlich noted. "And if you have a tool that takes difficult things away from you and makes your life a lot easier, then we tend to use it.” 

And, of course, it is a business. Tech's business model in a nutshell is, "We find stuff you don't like doing and do it for you." And then we get rich and leave you to pick up the pieces. The less you like doing them, the more it'll cost you. A look at the run up of AI stocks the last couple of years says it all.

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While I don't wish to come off as a Cassandra here, it looks like I might just do that anyway. As a former editor at a tech magazine and just about the techiest dweeble geek you're ever likely to meet, I've personally experienced and, later, written about every transformative technology of the modern era: television, the calculator, the computer, the internet search engine, the smart phone, social media -- all technologies which were fraught with all kinds of end of the world warnings.

But somehow, this one feels different.

The conclusions put forward here and which continue to accrue daily are clear: We're currently in the process of modifying the nature of sentience itself; redefining what it means to be human; what thinking is.

Where will it lead? It's not hard to imagine that, for some, diminishing a constituency's ability to reason would be welcomed rather than feared; a citizenry incapable of grasping nuanced solutions to the complex problems we will face in the future; pliant and utterly unable to discern wile or deception, willingly manipulated into accepting childlike solutions delivered in dulcet tones.

Speaking for myself, I'm proud of the fact that I can do the Saturday New York Times crossword and I ain't giving that up without a fight. But -- and here's the truly frightening thing -- we are on track to creating generations who will never even realize there was a fight to begin with.

Einstein said, "Technological progress is like an ax in the hands of a pathological criminal." For God's sake, please let's not screw this up so badly we make Einstein look like an optimist.