According to a new study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Oxford, and UCLA,
Study should be solid I guess.
participants who were given AI assistants (in this case, a chatbot powered by OpenAI’s GPT-5 model) would have the aid pulled from them without warning during the test
Wow, interesting idea. 👍
where they had their assistant removed, the AI group saw the solve rate fall off a cliff. They had a solve rate about 20% lower
And even worse IMO:
They also had nearly double the skip rate, meaning they simply chose not to solve the questions.
This seems very alarming IMO, because this indicates they lost some of their ability to think constructively on how to actually solve a problem!
I know there have always been some who cried wold every time new technology has become available, like calculators and computers. Even dictionaries were once claimed to be harmful once!
But maybe this time there is a real danger, because AI takes away a lot of the need to actually think creatively and constructively. And that’s an ability we must not lose.
The last paragraph of the article is even worse. As it mentions 2 studies that show these effects are also long term!!!
When driving somewhere, if I set out with the mindset that I can’t rely on gps I can usually wing it and figure out where to go when a hiccup occurs. If I don’t, then I have a lot of trouble getting into that path finding mode when needed… similar to this maybe?
Yeah exactly, because although it’s possible to do more with technology sometimes, you’re actively de-skilling at the same time. When we invented the written word yes it legitimately made everything better, but also we lost oral traditions and the capacity to memorize large volumes of storytelling, songs, and histories. Now you can burn the books, and the knowledge dies. It’s a real risk.
Everything is like this. Every technology has a cost beyond its price, and making a decision of whether to use it or not will always be in error unless you think about what you’re losing in the process.
Changing the terms of the test in the middle of it, without warning, is disruptive. I’m not convinced it “fried their brains.” The same would happen with a calculator suddenly removed during the middle of an exam.
Here’s that last paragraph. Microsoft’s finding actually sounds like it does have the disruptive factor: people are trained to use AI and then it is removed. And finally, finally in the very last sentence of the entire article we get the one piece of information that’s been missing the entire time: doctors perform better with AI help, but then worse than ever without it.
My conclusion? Let people have AI and perform better with it.
Carpenters trained on power tools will suddenly perform worse with hand tools than carpenters who were never given power tools. But if they are given power tools, they can build homes faster.
No shit?
The findings are also in line with a study Microsoft published last yearthat looked at cognitive decline among knowledge workers, which found that the more people lean on AI, the worse they perform when asked to work without support. It also echoes a study out of Poland, which found that while doctors are better at spotting cancer risks with AI assistance, they perform worse than the no-AI baseline once that assistance is removed.
Carpenters trained on power tools will suddenly perform worse with hand tools than carpenters who were never given power tools.
Now you are just making shit up. None of these examples are about people being trained on AI. The comparison would be if a carpenter using power tolls for 10 minutes, suddenly becomes worse at using the traditional tools he is trained to use.
Your claim is baseless, there is no evidence for it, and the lack of any evidence of it, makes it an unreasonable assumption based on your prejudice alone, and should not be believed.
Let people have AI and perform better with it.
Again a very loaded statement, nobody is preventing anybody from using AI based on this research. But maybe people are not really performing better, or at least not always, it may depend on the task.
Your logic is fundamentally flawed and inconsistent, and you seem to lack any ability to see this as a potential problem, so much so that it reeks of you having an agenda.
Your flawed logic and prejudice does not beat 3 research papers.
Yes the article reporting on a research paper has an agenda, and not the random guy ignoring the evidence to contradict it. With absolutely zero to show for your argument, and clearly using flawed logic.
Ah yes, Gizmodo, arbiter of scientific truths. Their agenda is clear: to get you to click, typically with an outragey clickbait headline that reinforces your favorite narrative.
You need to learn the difference between debating someone and shouting at them that they have no argument, no logic, no evidence, and ill motivations. I can think of a couple other things you also need to do, but I’ll keep it PG.
If I use AI for my personal coding projects I’ve found that if the task is unsolvable by the ai model, I’m not able to sit down and do it myself until the next day. It’s like I’ve got to reset my brain.
If I want to save time and use AI for a specific part of the code, it probably saves me 5 hours of work. But then I spend five hours yelling at the ai to try to get it to actually solve it. Next day I’ll just fix it myself in 2 hours.
But what you’re describing is not that uncommon, even without AI: Oftentimes when trying to solve a complex problem and being unsuccessful you have to reset your brain by doing something fundamentally different or have a good night of sleep and after that you solve the problem easily.
May what you’re experiencing is not AI related at all.
Study should be solid I guess.
Wow, interesting idea. 👍
And even worse IMO:
This seems very alarming IMO, because this indicates they lost some of their ability to think constructively on how to actually solve a problem!
I know there have always been some who cried wold every time new technology has become available, like calculators and computers. Even dictionaries were once claimed to be harmful once!
But maybe this time there is a real danger, because AI takes away a lot of the need to actually think creatively and constructively. And that’s an ability we must not lose.
The last paragraph of the article is even worse. As it mentions 2 studies that show these effects are also long term!!!
When driving somewhere, if I set out with the mindset that I can’t rely on gps I can usually wing it and figure out where to go when a hiccup occurs. If I don’t, then I have a lot of trouble getting into that path finding mode when needed… similar to this maybe?
Yeah exactly, because although it’s possible to do more with technology sometimes, you’re actively de-skilling at the same time. When we invented the written word yes it legitimately made everything better, but also we lost oral traditions and the capacity to memorize large volumes of storytelling, songs, and histories. Now you can burn the books, and the knowledge dies. It’s a real risk.
Everything is like this. Every technology has a cost beyond its price, and making a decision of whether to use it or not will always be in error unless you think about what you’re losing in the process.
Changing the terms of the test in the middle of it, without warning, is disruptive. I’m not convinced it “fried their brains.” The same would happen with a calculator suddenly removed during the middle of an exam.
You are disregarding the last paragraph, where 2 other studies showed similar results, without having the “disruptive” factor.
Here’s that last paragraph. Microsoft’s finding actually sounds like it does have the disruptive factor: people are trained to use AI and then it is removed. And finally, finally in the very last sentence of the entire article we get the one piece of information that’s been missing the entire time: doctors perform better with AI help, but then worse than ever without it.
My conclusion? Let people have AI and perform better with it.
Carpenters trained on power tools will suddenly perform worse with hand tools than carpenters who were never given power tools. But if they are given power tools, they can build homes faster.
No shit?
Now you are just making shit up. None of these examples are about people being trained on AI. The comparison would be if a carpenter using power tolls for 10 minutes, suddenly becomes worse at using the traditional tools he is trained to use.
Your claim is baseless, there is no evidence for it, and the lack of any evidence of it, makes it an unreasonable assumption based on your prejudice alone, and should not be believed.
Again a very loaded statement, nobody is preventing anybody from using AI based on this research. But maybe people are not really performing better, or at least not always, it may depend on the task.
Your logic is fundamentally flawed and inconsistent, and you seem to lack any ability to see this as a potential problem, so much so that it reeks of you having an agenda.
Your flawed logic and prejudice does not beat 3 research papers.
I laugh in your face. This article has a clear agenda, not me.
Yes the article reporting on a research paper has an agenda, and not the random guy ignoring the evidence to contradict it. With absolutely zero to show for your argument, and clearly using flawed logic.
All I hear is the laugh of ignorance.
Ah yes, Gizmodo, arbiter of scientific truths. Their agenda is clear: to get you to click, typically with an outragey clickbait headline that reinforces your favorite narrative.
You need to learn the difference between debating someone and shouting at them that they have no argument, no logic, no evidence, and ill motivations. I can think of a couple other things you also need to do, but I’ll keep it PG.
Ah yes the classic blaming the messenger argument, that is one of the most obvious and stupid fallacies.
If I use AI for my personal coding projects I’ve found that if the task is unsolvable by the ai model, I’m not able to sit down and do it myself until the next day. It’s like I’ve got to reset my brain.
If I want to save time and use AI for a specific part of the code, it probably saves me 5 hours of work. But then I spend five hours yelling at the ai to try to get it to actually solve it. Next day I’ll just fix it myself in 2 hours.
But what you’re describing is not that uncommon, even without AI: Oftentimes when trying to solve a complex problem and being unsuccessful you have to reset your brain by doing something fundamentally different or have a good night of sleep and after that you solve the problem easily.
May what you’re experiencing is not AI related at all.